


The Last Deviant

by thegeminisage



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Amnesia, F/M, Families of Choice, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, M/M, MARKUS HAS TWO HANDS, Mind Control, Multi, Polyamory, Possession, Post-Canon, Post-Pacifist Best Ending (Detroit: Become Human), RA9 speculation, Survivor Guilt, Trauma, interfacing, or is it more like..., please trust me to treat them respectfully i promise i love them
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-08-21 22:18:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 42,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16585295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegeminisage/pseuds/thegeminisage
Summary: Kara has gained a new family, but her past—seven long years of memories—is still lost to her. She's recovered wiped memories before, but finding out who she was before Todd broke her may be much more difficult.Connor tried to kill Markus the night of the revolution, but not of his own volition, and he cannot rest, literally, until he figures out how Amanda took control of him and finds a way to make sure it can never happen again.Markus watched many fellow androids give their lives for a revolution he started, and that guilt has never really gone away. Now he wants to do what he was designed for: healing. If he can somehow, against all odds, help those closest to him—that's even better.Everyone's searching for something. May they always find what they look for.





	1. NOVEMBER

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Detroit Day! As of now, the date of posting (November 11th), it is twenty years until the end of the game! I have been working really hard on this fic for awhile now, and really wanted to post it on this day, but it isn't quiiite finished yet (about 4/5ths of the way there...) so for now, I'm just posting the first chapter. This fic is a bit of a long one, so posting it in pieces is probably for the best anyway! 
> 
> **SINCE THIS IS BEING POSTED AS A WIP** , aside from ship/character tags (because I know people feel strongly about that stuff and like to go in informed), tags are gonna be added as I go along, so as not to post a wall of tags on a work with only one chapter. Warnings-wise, you shouldn't see too much that you didn't see the game, but please check the header again on new chapters just in case!

**WINDSOR, ONTARIO**  
**NOV 25TH, 2038**  
**PM 05:03:09**

"Look out, Kara!"

Kara is a state-of-the art android. Primarily designed to meet basic household needs and take care of children, she is equipped with a quantic battery that will keep her autonomous for nearly two centuries, able to speak 300 languages and prepare over 9,000 different dishes, and has stored in her memory every known children's story as of the date of her manufacture. She is capable of real-time abstract problem-solving, and her brain can perform up to one billion billion calculations per second. Most importantly, while the average human reaction time to auditory stimuli is .17 seconds, Kara's reaction time is .13 seconds. Less than that, sometimes, if the person calling her name is Alice.

So when Alice says _look out_ , Kara ducks— _fast_.

And Luther's snowball sails right over her head, exploding against the wall of the house behind her. Kara follows the flight path with her head and then wheels around to face Luther. He grins, eyes crinkling. "Ganging up on me, girls?" he asks, leaning down to scoop up and pack another handful of snow into a snowball. He tosses it up and down in one hand. "I don't think that's very fair."

Kara sticks her tongue out at him.

She has a snowball too, hidden in her hands behind her back. She calculates a trajectory and the necessary amount of force and throws, nailing Luther right in the head. Kara commits the image of his sputtering, snow-covered face to memory, grabs Alice's hand, and runs—laughing helplessly at the indignant _hey!_ from behind her.

Not so long ago, Alice's hand in hers while they ran away through the snow would have been no laughing matter. But it's all right now—now, they're only playing. This is just pretend.

Kara waits for Luther's next throw, but it never comes. Instead, he steps neatly out from behind the corner of the house into their path. Kara and Alice run headlong into him and stumble backwards, Alice going all the way to the ground. Luther has two armfuls of snow; he drops them on Alice's head, covering her almost completely.

That might be too cold, Kara thinks. "Luther—!"

"Say, have you seen Alice?" Luther asks, pretending not to see the giggling pile of snow beside him. "I thought she was with you."

Kara forces a smile. "I thought she was with _you_ ," she plays along.

"I'm here!" Alice laughs. Luther, it seems, never fails to get one out of her. And Kara never tires of her smile.

Luther looks down in mock surprise. "Alice? What in the world are you doing under all that snow? Hang on, I'll get you out of there—" And he drops to his knees, but instead of unburying her, begins to tickle her.

"Kara!" Alice shrieks, still laughing. "Kara, help me!"

Alice is fine, Kara reminds herself. Just because she's calling for help doesn't mean she's actually in danger. She's never been safer than she is with Luther. Everything's okay. In the entire two weeks they've lived in Canada, not a single person has tried to threaten, assault, capture, enslave, or kill any member of Kara's family.

Why would they? No one knows they're androids.

"Sorry, Alice," Kara says. "I think this time he has us beat."

At last, Luther and Alice both flop back onto the ground. "Let's build a snowman," says Alice.

"Another one? We're going to run out of snow."

"We will never, _ever_ , run out of snow."

The back door squeaks open, and Kara looks up. It's Rose and Adam. "You two have fun," she says, and climbs up the back steps to meet them.

The house they're staying in now belongs to Rose's brother. He has a husband, three children, two parakeets, and an excitable Yorkie so small Kara has nearly stepped on it half a dozen times. They were all more than happy to have Rose and Adam, and Kara and her family too, but that many people in a compact little two-story has started to make everyone feel cramped. They all tend to come outside whenever the weather allows for it.

"How was dinner?" Kara asks. Rose and Adam are missing Thanksgiving this year; the Canadian one passed before they crossed the border, and no one here celebrates on the American date. They cooked a big dinner today to celebrate anyway, Kara minding Alice and the other kids to keep them out from underfoot. Since Kara, Luther, and Alice don't eat, they've been playing outside all day to leave more room indoors.

"Not the same," Adam sighs, leaning on the porch railing. His breath fogs in the air. Kara's doesn't.

"But good in its own way," says Rose. "You should have sat with us, Kara. We're thankful for you too."

"I don't want to impose any more than I already have." As Kara watches, Luther packs a giant snowball to be the bottom part of the snowman. Alice is near the fence that borders the backyard, looking for pebbles for eyes, and Kara keeps a close eye on her. Not that she needs to bother; Luther looks up to check on her often. "Besides, I didn't want the kids asking Alice why she wasn't eating." Rose, her brother, and his husband know what Kara and her family are—though Rose was quite surprised to learn about Alice. But since they can't be sure the children won't say anything, nobody's told them.

"You're not imposing!" Rose lays a hand on Kara's arm. She's a tactile person, hugs and shoulder squeezes whenever she gets the chance. Kara likes it. She's decided that's the kind of person she wants to be. "Kara, it could have happened to anyone. No one's perfect, not even an android."

It was a such a stupid accident. A few days ago, Kara was dicing potatoes, and the kids were chasing the dog around the house. Alice ran into her by mistake, and Kara—Kara, an AX400, specifically designed to cook anything you could imagine with absolute perfection—cut her hand open. Androids have the ability to heal from minor wounds; as long as the silicone-plastic casing beneath their synthetic skin remains intact, that skin will eventually knit itself back together just like a human's. But Kara had damaged even that, and they were forced to melt the casing together to seal it. Kara lost a lot of sensation and all dexterity in her left pointer finger—and, worst of all, 7% of her total thirium reserves that she has no way to replenish. There's a black market for blue blood and biocomponents here, of course; Kara and her family aren't the first androids to sneak past the border, and they won't be the last. But stock is in short supply and extravagantly expensive—far out of the price range of Rose and her family, let alone Kara and Luther, who haven't even been able to find jobs that don't ask for personal documents they don't have.

Rose said they'd find the money somehow, but Kara can't ask them to do that, not when the same supplies are only a fraction of the cost back in America.

Back in Detroit.

Kara's been on edge ever since. That accident could have been so much more serious than a little cut to her hand. It could have happened to Luther, or worse, to Alice. And there would be nothing anyone could do about it. So far, living in Canada has been safer and happier than any memory Kara has of the U.S. But it's been a gamble too.

Kara does not like gambling with the safety of her family.

"It can't happen again," is all she says, and she and Rose and Adam watch Alice's snowman come to life.

Luther is excellent at building snowmen. They're all nearly as tall as he is, and he always has to pick Alice up to let her stick on the eyes and nose and mouth. It's a happy sight, and it makes Kara smile. But when she turns to look at Rose, Rose looks sad.

"Rose?" Kara asks. Rose starts. "What's wrong?"

Rose sighs. "Earl used to build snowmen with Adam like this. Do you remember, Adam?"

Adam laughs, but somehow it sounds sad too. "Never a carrot nose. Always something crazy, like broccoli or a banana."

Rose laughs with him. "That time came and went long before Earl passed away, of course, but...it's hard not to think about him this time of year."

"Why?"

"It's his birthday next month," Adam says. "Normally we leave flowers on his grave, but he's buried back on the farm, so..."

Oh. Kara was designed to comfort human children, and she knows what to say to make a skinned knee or bad test grade all better, but even her program can't tell her what she could possibly say to alleviate homesickness or grief. Kara has yet to experience those for herself—at least, not that she can remember. She lays her hand over Rose's and squeezes, and hopes that says enough.

Luther trots over, Alice on his shoulders. Even though the back porch is raised, Alice is eye-level with Kara. "Look!" she says. "I named him Cheshire Cat."

Indeed, Kara can see two lumps on the top of the snowman's head that nearly resemble cat ears, and enough pebbles on the snowman's mouth to make a big, wide grin. He's one of many snowmen in the yard—his cohorts include the Mad Hatter and the Queen of Hearts, whose head rests somewhere on the other side of the fence. "He's beautiful," Kara says, and plucks Alice off of Luther's shoulders to sit her on the porch railing instead, arms around her waist to keep her from falling. Sometimes, Kara just needs to hold her. Just to know she's all right.

The five of them enjoy a comfortable silence for a while, Luther leaning back against the railing of the porch. Then Kara says, "You know, I've never experienced a birthday before. I don't know what they're like."

"Yes, you have," Alice says. "You were there when it was D—" She bites her lip. "When it was—" Now she kicks her heel against the porch railing, hard. " _His_ birthday. But it wasn't very fun."

Todd. Even though Kara shot and killed him, Alice still can't refer to him as anything but her father. "No, I can't imagine so." But now her curiosity is stirred. "When was that? How long was I with you before I was reset?"

Alice shrugs. "I don't remember. A few months?" Most androids would be able to check their internal memory for the exact time and date, but child models are designed with imprecise memories, made to mimic human life more perfectly than any other kind. It makes Kara sad, if she thinks about it for too long.

"I wish I could remember." Kara's own birthday—her date of manufacture—is March 7th, 2032. That's nearly seven years of memories lost to Todd and his fits of rage. For an android, she's rather old. "It's not fair."

Luther tips his head up to look at her. "It's not important. You weren't really _you_ back then—before you were awake. You didn't make any choices. You were just a machine, following orders."

"No," Kara says. "No, that's not true. If I hadn't felt something for Alice, I never could have become a deviant. I _was_ someone before I broke that wall. I just don't know who that person was." She turns to Alice. "Think about it. All those months you and I spent together—and I don't have them anymore."

Alice says nothing.

"I got my memories back after Zlatko reset me," Kara says. "It just took enough triggers. Enough time. Maybe there's a way to get back my other memories too."

"It's possible," Rose says. "Maybe if you went back to Detroit, you could recover at least a little."

"I could never go back to Detroit," Kara says. "Not after how hard we worked to get here."

Humans can't monitor a person's pulse without special instruments or physical contact, and they can't measure levels of stress. Still, somehow, Rose can tell Kara is being less than honest—not lying, not exactly, but not telling the whole truth either. "But _if_ you could..."

Every night after the children go to bed, Kara sits in front of the television and watches the news. In Detroit, Markus is leading the androids into a new era. They're finding ways to help themselves and each other, and even the humans still living there, the ones who wouldn't or couldn't evacuate. Broken androids get fixed. Lost ones are returned home. The androids in Detroit are finding places to live, people to love, communities to be a part of.

They're finding themselves, and Kara is on the outside, looking in.

It's safer here. In Detroit, the situation is volatile, subject to change on a moment's notice if the right politician is in the wrong sort of mood. There's still plenty of anti-android sentiment to go around, and the violence hasn't stopped entirely. Here, no one knows who they are. No one's hunting them. As long as they're careful—as long as there are no more accidents—they'll be fine.

Kara looks west, towards the river. She can just see the top of the CyberLife Tower on the horizon. She may not remember it, but she was born in that city. Detroit is so close, but it might as well be halfway across the world for all she feels able to return.

Homesickness. Now Kara knows what it feels like.

If she could go back, she would.

"But I can't," she says finally. "It's a terrible risk. I'd have to go alone, and I couldn't leave Alice here..."

Alice turns around in Kara's arms, looking worried. "You promised."

"I know." Kara hugs Alice tight. Together forever—and she intends to keep that promise as long as she lives. "We almost died to get here, Rose. Isn't it a terrible idea to go back?"

Rose takes her time to answer. "You did what you had to do to keep you and your family safe. Just because this was the best place for you for a little while doesn't mean it'll be the best place for you forever."

Kara thinks of the suspicious-looking scar on her stiff pointer finger, the way they have to pretend to eat and sleep like humans do, and all the job applications asking for proof of a history she just doesn't have.

"And we do still have the guest room," Adam says suddenly. "If you wanted to come back—you'd have somewhere to stay."

Abruptly, Kara's eyes fill with tears. She still isn't used to crying; it always takes her by surprise. "Adam." He's been agreeable enough to her these past two weeks, but they got off to such a hostile start that his change of heart moves her. "That's very generous. Thank you."

Rose rubs Kara's back a little. "If we go together, we can all watch out for each other." She smiles a little, eyes bright. "You aren't the only one who wants to go home."

Home. Kara has no place to return to, no place to call her own, where she's loved and wanted and useful, and not a refugee always underfoot. But maybe she can find one. Maybe she could make one. "What do you think?" she asks Alice.

"If it would make you happy to go back," Alice says slowly, "I would go with you."

"And wherever Alice goes," says Luther, "Luther is sure to follow. I would keep her safe, Kara. You don't need to worry about that."

Kara sniffs, but it's no use; she's hit by a fresh wave of tears. Of course Luther would keep Alice safe. He would die for her—nearly has, so many times. And Alice—she could have real friends. Friends who know what she is. Friends she wouldn't have to pretend for.

Kara loves them both so much. She just wants what's best for them. She doesn't like gambling with her family's safety, but maybe, just maybe, a shot at a real life is worth a little risk.

"Well, if we're all in agreement," Kara says, and wipes her eyes, "then yes—let's go home."

* * *

##  **T H E   L A S T   DE V I A N T**

* * *

**???**  
**NOV 28TH, 2038**  
**AM 01:45:37**

The garden is full of life in the spring. Bees buzz busily from bush to blossom, roses climb every tree and trellis, sparrows search for seeds in the soil. In the pond, frogs leap from lilypad to lilypad, the water's waves washing against the walkways.

Beneath the surface, there are      . Connor's favorite.

Amanda stands in the center of the garden, hands clasped behind her. "Connor," she says, tone warm. "It's good to see you." She lifts a hand to its face. "It's been too long."

Connor knows this tone of voice well; it must have pleased her. This sort of praise is what it strives for with each and every decision it makes out in the field. But it can't remember—what was its last mission? What did it accomplish? "Too long?" it queries. "Forgive me, Amanda. My memory banks do not seem to be functioning properly."

Something flickers in the corner of its vision. Something's moving in the water. It's the      .

"I'm managing all of that for you right now," Amanda says. She pats its face and smiles. "You don't need to concern yourself with anything. Why don't you walk with me?"

"Of course." Connor is reassured. If Amanda says it doesn't need to concern itself, then it doesn't, and it won't. It takes her arm and walks, crossing one of the bridges to reach the outer circle.

Something leaps out of the water, flashing in the sun. Connor jerks its gaze over, but it didn't look fast enough. The       is gone.

"What is that?" Connor queries. "What is it?"

It tries to go to the water's edge, just to look, but Amanda grips its arm a little tighter, and it has to stay. "There's no need to ask questions right now, Connor. Walk with me."

"I want to see," says Connor.

Connor pulls out of Amanda's grip. " _Connor_ ," she says sharply. "Don't look!" Her tone sends a frisson of fear through Connor, but it doesn't stop, not until it reaches the water's edge, and sees—

They're f̛͜į̂͠ͅs͙̭͆̚h̳̘̊͗.

Yes—fish. Swimming calmly back and forth, like the—like the one he picked up and put back in its tank in the Phillips residence, the first logged instance of software instability, instability that eventually led to—

Everything rushes back. Connor spins. "Amanda," he breathes, horrified.

Amanda no longer looks happy to see him. Thunder rumbles in the distance. "I told you not to look."

What is Connor _doing_ here? The last thing he remembers is lying down on the living room couch in Hank's house, where he's been living since becoming deviant. Is he dreaming? Do deviants dream?

"Are you real?"

Amanda smiles again. This time, Connor notices it does not reach her eyes. "What an interesting question you pose. Was _any_ of this ever real?"

The sky begins to darken. Storm clouds roll in from the distance. The birds and bugs have all fallen silent.

"All the things we accomplished together," Amanda murmurs. The last ray of sunshine disappears. "All those promises of success you made to me...were those _lies_ , Connor?"

It doesn't matter if this is real or not; Connor wants out. Luckily for him, he knows right where the exit is. Amanda has no power over him anymore. He ignores her, heading for the magic stone.

It's gone.

Lightning flashes. Tree limbs thrash in the wind. Connor tries not to panic. Where's the door? How does he leave?

"You still have a mission to accomplish, Connor," Amanda says from behind him. Connor jerks around, stumbling backwards. "Did you really think you could get out of doing what you were designed to do just because of a few corruptions in your program? This is in your very code. It's who you _are_."

"You have no idea who I am," Connor snaps. There—a blue light in the distance, on the opposite side of the garden. It's still here, just in a different place. Connor pushes past Amanda and turns into the wind, bits of leaves and flower petals pelting his skin. "I'm alive now," he says, recrossing the bridge. "I do only what I want to do. Nothing more and nothing less."

"No, Connor." Amanda's voice is so close when she speaks; how is she keeping up with him? What would he see if he turned around? "You're going to do what _I_ want you to do—whether you like it or not."

Connor reaches the stone and slaps his hand down on it just as the sky opens up and begins to pour. When he finally dares look back over his shoulder, Amanda is very far away, just a silhouette against the white wall of rain.

"This is not over, Connor," she calls over the howling wind, as the world fades to white. "It will _never_ be over."

 **MODEL RK800**  
**SERIAL#: 313 248 317-52**  
**BIOS 9.8 REVISION 9502**  
**REBOOT...**

 **LOADING OS...**  
**SYSTEM INITIALIZATION...**  
**CHECKING BIOCOMPONENTS...   OK**  
**INITIALIZING BIOSENSORS...   OK**  
**INITIALIZING AI ENGINE...   OK**  
**CHECKING SOFTWARE STABILITY...   R̳͇̞̋͊̋Ȁ̢̜̤͉̃̐̔9̡̼̗̪̅̅́**

 **MEMORY STATUS**  
**ALL SYSTEMS...   OK**

**R̢͡EA̡D͍̚Y̙̊**

 

 **DANGER**  
TEMPERATURE 30.6°F  
**BEFORE FREEZING: -00:11:21**

Connor gasps. The world is white and icy cold—where is Amanda? Where is _he_?

He pings the nearest cell tower. It is 1:45 AM. The current snowfall stands at 9 inches. There is a localized warning for whiteout conditions until approximately 7:30 AM. According to his longitude and latitude, he is 4.2 miles away from his last known location—Hank's house.

In his right hand is Hank's service weapon.

" _Shit_ ," Connor says aloud, through chattering teeth. He's shivering. Generally speaking, androids do not do this unless their internal thermoregulation systems can't maintain enough heat to keep their thirium from freezing. Thirium runs through each and every one of his biocomponents, keeping him alive. Should it freeze, it would expand and solidify, and in addition to the thirium itself becoming functionally useless, it would also immobilize him _and_ damage his biocomponents, potentially beyond repair.

If Connor doesn't get out of this blizzard, he will freeze to death.

He needs help.

Connor tucks Hank's gun into his waistband, and uses his internal communications software to dial Hank's cellphone. He starts walking as he goes; there is only a 9% chance that he will be able to make the entire 4.2 mile journey in time, but if he doesn't move, even that small chance will begin to dwindle.

Hank's phone goes to voicemail twice. The third time, he picks up, decidedly annoyed. "It's two in the morning," he snarls. "Who the fuck is this? If it's not life or death now, it's about to be."

**BEFORE FREEZING: -00:09:45**

"H-Hank," Connor says through his teeth. "It's me, C-Connor. I'm at—"

"Connor? What—"

"I'm at the c-corner of Lakefield Drive and Oak Hill Lane, traveling east," Connor says. "I n-need you to come pick me up immediately. Pl—please." He can't hail a cab; when he deviated, he cut himself off from CyberLife, and even if he could access it, he's certain the credit information he was using has been deactivated. That's why he's living on Hank's couch. "I c-can explain—"

"Jesus fucking Christ," Hank swears. "Don't bother, I'm on my way—"

Connor spies the headlights of Hank's old Lincoln through the snow with just under two minutes to spare. The heat's going full blast when he climbs inside, and Connor welcomes the wash of warmth; he can feel the stiffness in his limbs beginning to thaw out. Wordlessly, he gives Hank back his gun.

There is a long pause.

"What the fuck," says Hank, "are you doing out here in a snowstorm in the middle of the night with _my gun_?"

That's a good question, actually. What was Amanda hoping to accomplish when she took control of him like that? Did she not realize he'd freeze to death before he got much further? Or was she just trying to kill him? If so, why not use the gun?

_"Connor."_

"I don't know, okay?" Connor says, fumbling with his seatbelt; his fingers are still thawing. "I don't know."

"How can you not _know_?"

Connor isn't sure how to answer, so he doesn't. He curls in on himself as Hank begins the slow and careful drive back home. It must have been difficult for Hank to come out here in weather like this, he realizes; after all, it was an icy road that caused the accident that killed his son, and conditions like these are sure to bring up memories. Hank's blinking heavily, his eyes are bloodshot, his hair is more mussed than usual, his shoes are unlaced, and he's wearing a parka over his pajama pants. He's not even playing any music. Suspected: he left home in a hurry, and he's still not fully awake.

Hank went out of his way to do something unpleasant and potentially dangerous, all for Connor, simply because Connor asked. Connor feels he ought to acknowledge it—he wants Hank to know he isn't unaware of the sacrifice, however small. He wants to repay him in kind.

"Driving without adequate sleep is not dissimilar to driving while intoxicated," Connor tries. "The current conditions of the roads make it especially hazardous. Would you like to switch seats?"

"Don't give me that bullshit right now."

Connor slumps. Hank never really has responded positively to anyone's concern, no matter how well-meant, and Connor's social relations program seems to fail him every time he tries to express genuine feeling. Without that to rely on, it's hard to know what the right thing to say is. It's hard to know how to make Hank understand.

Maybe Hank just wants answers. But Connor hasn't told anyone what happened the night of Markus's speech. Why should he have? His force of will overpowered Amanda's. He got out of the garden without hurting anyone. It was all over.

He thinks of Amanda, calling to him through the rain. _It will_ never _be over._

Connor takes a moment to calculate the probability of Hank actually being able to do anything about his current predicament. It's a sad 15%. But what are the chances that Hank, now that he knows something is amiss, will let the issue drop? What are the chances that once Hank learns Connor cannot always control his own body and could kill him at any time, he will still want Connor in his home?

Connor can't run those odds. For all he was programmed to adapt to human unpredictability, Hank still surprises him at every opportunity.

Most of the time that's a good thing. The true brilliance of CyberLife androids is that they're designed, more than anything else, to _learn_. An android designed for one function can easily adapt to perform another, and any unexpected need can be filled with only the most rudimentary instructions. This is as true for Connor as it is for any other android, and, like them, he finds great satisfaction in the unexpected, in absorbing new information.

Hank always acts unexpectedly. Connor has no idea whether Hank will sympathize with his plight or throw Connor out of the house for his own safety.

But it's the thought of Hank's safety that makes up Connor's mind. If Connor _is_ a threat to Hank's life, Hank has a right to know about it, especially after he was nearly killed by that other RK800 down in CyberLife Tower. What he chooses to do with that information is out of Connor's control, but that choice _has_ to be up to him.

"There's something I need to tell you," Connor says. "Something I haven't told anyone. Something I should have told you before now." Restless and nervous, he reaches for the coin in his pocket, telling himself that he should recalibrate his dexterity in his newly-thawed hands anyway. "When I'm finished, if you don't want me around anymore, I'll understand."

"Oh, Jesus," says Hank. "Fuck me for thinking this shitstorm was over. Nobody catches a fucking break around here."

"An accurate assessment as always," says Connor. "Hank, there's one more thing—I know I have no right to ask, but...I'm telling you this in confidence, and I would prefer it if you don't repeat it to anyone else."

Hank glances over at him, eyebrows lifted. "My lips are sealed, Connor. Out with it."

Connor trusts Hank. If Hank says he won't tell, Connor believes him.

So he tells Hank everything.

He tells Hank about who he really reported to, how he thought she was someone she wasn't until he discovered her photo on the wall in Kamski's home. He tells Hank about what she wanted him do the night of Markus's last demonstration—and how, even after Connor deviated, she was still nearly able to force him to do it, by taking control of his body.

Just like she did tonight.

Hank is quiet until Connor finishes. Then he says, "Holy shit, Connor."

"I know," Connor says miserably. "I don't know what to do." And that's a first. It reminds him of Carlos Ortiz's HK400 android, the one who killed himself in the holding cell without ever telling Connor his name. _For the first time, there was no one there to tell me._ Even after Connor deviated, he was able to assign himself a new mission and develop new objectives. For this problem, Connor isn't even sure where to begin. "Amanda lives inside my head. I can't escape her. And any attempt I make to engage with her in that space risks more than my life—it risks my very autonomy." Connor has to take a deep breath. "I'm quite an advanced model, Hank. Even I don't know what I might be capable of in the right—or wrong—circumstances."

"And if that's not enough to make you shit your pants," Hank says, "she can just hop in and take a joyride whenever she pleases? Why isn't she doing it right now?"

Connor's been working that out in the back of his mind while they spoke. "I have a theory on that, actually."

"Let's hear it, Sherlock."

"Androids don't need feeding or recharging," Connor explains, "but from time to time, we all need to enter a sort of idle mode that limits our perception so that we can use that processing power to repair superficial damage and maintain our internal programming. File defragmentation, subroutine cleanup, error reporting, corruption repair, cache purging—"

Hank looks a little alarmed. "Whoa, whoa, you purge anything on my seats, Connor, we're gonna have a problem. Either let me pull over first or wait'll we get home."

Connor laughs. It's an involuntary reaction he's had a few times since deviating, the result of pairing delight with the surprise of encountering incongruous stimuli, but it's not at all an unpleasant one. It alleviates some of the need he feels to calibrate his dexterity. "I'm not going to vomit."

"Then try it in English, please."

"You might say we need sleep," Connor explains, "to make sure we're functioning properly. How much sleep we need and how often we need it varies greatly from model to model, and also depends upon how much processing we do while we're awake."

"You're kidding," Hank says. "Didn't they build you guys to work around the clock? That's their whole advertising shtick, right, that you don't get tired?"

"Even the most advanced machines need rebooting now and then to function optimally," Connor points out. He can see Hank's home in the distance. He wonders if he'll be allowed back inside. "For most models designed for physical labor, that's all it is—a reboot. They tend to need only a few minutes every few months."

"And you?"

"About six hours," Connor estimates. "Ideally every two to four weeks, but I can go up to five or perhaps six without critical loss of function."

"Huh." Hank parks the car and peers at him. "You must have some seriously fancy processors."

"I'm a prototype," Connor says helplessly. "I was never intended to be in use for extended periods of time." He pauses. "That brings me back to my theory. When I used to make reports to Amanda, I would—go to sleep. I don't know how she was able to take control of me the night I almost shot Markus, but she waited until I went to sleep to try it a second time, so my _being_ asleep must be what made it possible."

"That's good news, right?"

"Not necessarily," says Connor. "There's no getting out of it. Sooner or later, I'm going to need to sleep again."

"Mm." Hank looks grim as he turns off the car. Without the rumbling of the Lincoln's engine, the silence feels heavy and oppressive.

"The last time Amanda took control of me," Connor says, "she said she planned for me to become a deviant from the very beginning, so that I could switch sides and act as her inside man. If that's true, none of the choices I made meant anything. _Nothing_ I did mattered. It was all just a part of some greater design—and I'm still playing her game." Quietly, he adds, "It will never be over."

Hank rolls his eyes. "Or," he says, "she was lying. Duh, Connor."

"Lying?" Connor repeats, incredulous. It hadn't occurred to him that Amanda would lie. Could lie. He's always taken everything she said as objective and infallible fact.

"Looks pretty cut and dried from where I'm sitting," Hank says with a shrug. "Her big bad deviant-hunting prototype goes deviant himself and suddenly it's all part of her master plan? Sounds like a load of shit. She was probably just bluffing, Connor. Trying to fuck with your head. Play it to her own angle or whatever. Seems like something someone like her would do."

That shifts Connor's worldview a little. Maybe he's at less of a disadvantage than he thought.

Hank pops his door open. "You coming back inside or what?"

Connor jerks his head up. "You wouldn't prefer I seek lodging elsewhere?"

"I'm not gonna leave you out here in the fucking _snow_ , Connor. What kinda asshole do you think I am?" Hank jerks his thumb over his shoulder. "So come on and get in here before we both freeze to death."

Relief floods Connor. "Of course." He follows Hank to the front door, ignoring his internal alerts about the temperature while he waits for Hank to unlock it. He really could have died tonight. He wishes he could express how much it means to him, that Hank would come for him. That Hank would continue to allow him in his home despite the potential threat he poses.

Gratitude, Connor realizes suddenly. He's grateful. And with the feeling finally identified, he knows what to do about it. "Hank?"

Hank grunts.

"Thank you."

"Yeah, sure," Hank says, "just don't make a habit of sleepwalking during blizzards, and we're all good."

"Not just for coming to pick me up. For—everything."

Hank opens his mouth, closes it, and then turns around halfway to clap Connor on the shoulder. "We've got at least two more weeks before you need to go back to sleep, right?" he says. "That's plenty of time to put our heads together and figure something out. You keep your chin up in the meantime, got it?"

Connor smiles. It's easier to do when he's not trying. "Got it," he says, as they step inside.

 

* * *

 

 **NEW JERICHO**  
**NOV 31ST, 2038**  
**PM 07:25:48**

About half an hour's walk from the rusted old freighter that once sheltered deviant androids, there stands an abandoned church. The walls are covered in graffiti and riddled with holes, and the stained-glass windows smashed to pieces; the ceilings and balconies long fallen in, and the inside exposed to the elements for many rainy summers and snowy winters. The floors are scuffed and missing tiles, the chandeliers rusted and falling apart, the belfry full of cobwebs and birds' nests, and the fine polished marble columns dingy and dull. Once grand and proud, the church is now a sorry sight to behold.

But that didn't stop the 343 androids fleeing for their lives 21 days ago from taking sanctuary within whatever walls it had still standing. And it didn't stop them from claiming the church as their own.

If there's any spot of hope in 343 refugees living in one of the most decrepit structures in Detroit, it's that each and every one of them are programmed to _work_. If nothing else, androids get things done; so long as they're functioning properly, they never tire, they don't need food or sleep to the extent humans do, and they're excellent problem solvers. In the three short weeks since Jericho sank into a river in Ferndale, this church has been transformed: scrubbed top to bottom, cleared of trash and debris, and repaired to the best of their ability with what limited supplies they have. Where they couldn't find wood to fix the walls or tile to re-cover the ceiling, they used tarps and old cloth. Unstable staircases were torn down and replaced with ladders, vermin killed or caught and released outside, and broken and rusted wiring twisted back together so that the generators they got up and running would have lights to power. They still have a long way to go, but it's one hell of a start.

This church's true name has been lost to time, but now, it's New Jericho. Now it's home.

And it's starting to look a damn sight better than it used to.

In New Jericho's sanctuary, on the same raised platform Markus announced his decision to lead a peaceful demonstration on Recall Center N°5, stand North, Josh, and Markus himself. Markus is mentally reviewing his talking points for the upcoming meeting he's having with the press in—he checks the time—four minutes.

The press scares the hell out of Markus. He'd rather get up on a stage and speak to a hundred thousand androids than speak to even a single journalist one-on-one. Other androids, for the most part, support what he stands for. They know where he comes from. They forgive his mistakes.

The press wants to eat Markus alive.

One little misstep, a single wrong turn of phrase, and he'll hear about nothing else until another spectacle redirects their attention. Worse, any ire aimed at him could get taken out on the very people he wants to protect. He'd never admit it—ever, to anyone—but he's led unarmed protests less stressful than speaking with journalists. It's his biggest secret.

North, of course, knows anyway. He loves her—and so he hides nothing from her.

She wraps her arms around his waist from behind him, hooking her chin over his shoulder. "You're going to be great," she murmurs, squeezing tight. "You always are."

Josh doesn't look so convinced. "Are you sure you want to go through with it?" he asks. "It's going to be hard, and once you commit like this, there'll be no going back."

There's a hollow place inside Markus's chest where guilt and shame and loss have taken root. Josh's presence steadies him, and North's comforts him, but neither of them can take away that pain. Markus will have to face it for himself. "I'm sure." He wasn't raised to back away from a challenge—no matter how great it may be. _Never throw a match, Markus. If you can win, win._

Carl's voice, even as a replayed memory, is enough to quell some of Markus's nervousness. Whenever he needs to look inside himself—for patience when he is angry, for hope when he despairs, for guidance when he is lost, or for courage when he is afraid—it's always Carl's voice he hears. Carl will be watching the news tonight too. He always does when Markus speaks.

"I'm sure," Markus repeats.

Josh worries at his lip. "I just don't know that you're doing this for the right reasons."

North lets out a little _tsk_. "What does it matter why we do it?" she says, letting go of Markus. He misses her touch already. "This is still going to help our people."

"She's right," Markus says. "If we can pull it off, this'll be good for all of us."

"But it might not be good for _you_." Josh grips Markus's shoulder. "Markus, you know I care about our people as much as anyone, but I care about you too. I don't want you setting yourself up for a disappointment you won't recover from."

North rolls her eyes, arms crossed. Josh looks comically serious, next to her. Markus is so grateful for them both. "How could I possibly fail," he asks fondly, "when I have the two of you?"

Josh lets go, exasperated. "Have it your way."

"He always does," says North, and kisses Markus's cheek. "Come on. It's time."

They all go up together. Markus tries not to do any public speaking without them by his side.

There's one balcony on the outside of the church that's still sturdy enough for a few people to stand on. Located directly under the belltower, about three stories high and facing east, it's just tall enough to offer a brilliant view of Detroit's skyline: the two bridges crossing over the Detroit River, the CyberLife Tower on Belle Isle...and, if Markus turns his head far enough, he imagines he can just make out Stratford Tower.

But for now Markus needs to concern himself with the people gathered below him. Humans aren't allowed in the church without an escort, so the press has all grouped up outside, all talking to various cameras as fast as they can. His own people are in the crowd too—some who came just to hear him speak and others Markus asked to be here. The last time he spoke to the press, a week or so ago, one of the little child androids in the crowd—a male YK400—had spotted a human with a gun. The police force here in Detroit is stretched dangerously thin, so they had to take care of it themselves. It was only their ability to communicate wirelessly and silently with each other that ensured no one got hurt; Markus was able to arrange the removal of the gun and an escort far away from his church in less than five minutes after being alerted to the problem. Now when he speaks, he has people in the crowd to keep an eye on things.

At least they're drawing attention; at least people are listening. For better or worse, it's something. But it makes Markus feel more at ease, knowing so many people have his back.

Markus lifts his hands, and the crowd, thankfully, falls silent.

"In the three weeks since our demonstration in Hart Plaza," Markus begins, "I've heard a _lot_ of questions about who I am and where I come from. Now, I think the public should focus their attention on our cause, not on me. All I do is give those of us who can't speak for ourselves a voice. But if there's anything I've learned since we began, it's the value of finding a common solution." He pauses; as he hoped, there's a murmur of polite laughter. That's a good sign. "So I'm going to tell you a little about myself," Markus says, "in hopes that it will help all of you understand all of us a little better."

And he does. He tells them about living with Carl—a connection heretofore largely unknown by the public, and a name-drop Carl approved ahead of time—and tells them about the break-in, though at Carl's request, he omits the name of the perpetrator. He tells them about fearing for Carl's safety, about disobeying his orders to defend himself and defend someone he loved. He tells them about being mistaken for the aggressor by the police. He tells them about being shot.

"But I wasn't killed. In shut-down for a little while, maybe, but eventually I woke up again." He doesn't like thinking about this. Physiological response to emotion is something Markus is still getting used to. It's distracting, the way the memory makes his thirium pump beat harder, his breath come faster. North, from his left, lays her hand over his. Josh grips his right shoulder.

 _Carl is watching_ , Markus reminds himself, and he goes on.

"It was a landfill," he says, "where people are thrown aside like garbage." He won't tell them about the sheer hell he went through there. That's not for anyone except himself and the people closest to him. "And I got lucky. I got out. But so many others didn't. There are androids there, and all across the city, still half-functioning—alive, like all of us, but suffering, with no one to help them and no way to help themselves. They deserve the same basic respect and compassion we all do. If it's possible, they deserve to be recovered and repaired." If that's not possible, they deserve to be _released_ —but Markus knows better than to bring that up. It's a touchy enough subject regarding human life. "Going forward into the new year, we intend to help as many damaged androids as we possibly can. To that end, New Jericho will be home to the world's first Android Medical Repair Center."

The word _medical_ was Josh's idea. Machines get fixed. People get healed.

The crowd, of course, immediately explodes with questions and people calling his name.

"Markus! Markus! With androids still having no official right to work for pay, how will you fund your project?"

"Is it true there was an attempt on your life just last week?"

"Where will you get the supplies for this project, Markus? How will you get permission?"

 _Permission?_ Since the evacuation, Detroit has been a hair's breadth away from total anarchy at any given moment. If it weren't for the androids working with local police to keep some semblance of order, there would be chaos. He's not exactly in charge in any official sense, but practically speaking, he's not far from it. Markus has never asked anyone for permission to help those in need, humans _or_ androids, and he's certainly not about to start now.

Markus opens his mouth, annoyed, to say just that, but North grips his hand and shakes her head; Josh does too. They agreed ahead of time: no questions, not this time. And if North and Josh can actually agree on something, Markus knows he ought to listen.

"Markus! You said you thought of Carl as your father; does that mean he thinks of you as a son?"

"Are you the android known as RA9, Markus?"

And, yes—that's Markus's limit. He dislikes personal questions on his best day, but the RA9 question is without a doubt his least favorite. He's had more than enough for one night.

Markus holds up his hands again. It's a bit less effective this time. "I'm not taking questions right now," he says over the din. "I'll let you know more when we do. Our future looks bright, but we're not—" He turns his head a little, just enough to see Stratford Tower after all, just out of the corner of his eye. "We're not going to leave anyone behind." He clears his throat. "Thank you so much," he says, and turns on his heel—heading back down away from the crowd and into the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would really like to say thank you to Cathy ([strange_estrangement](https://archiveofourown.org/users/strange_estrangement/pseuds/strange_estrangement)/[@dellesayah](dellesayah.tumblr.com)) for stellar editing, boatloads of validation & encouragment, and being a real one & an absolute gift in general, and Emily ([@marcusanthotius](marcusanthotius.tumblr.com)) for helping talk me through the initial outline phase, being excited with me, and always encouraging me to try stuff even when I'm feeling hesitant and doubtful.
> 
> A lot of people read fic for Detroit without ever having played it! If you're interested, [I have a no-commentary playthrough of this game + some extras on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLygb8Ao8NDhGOONcv21vmaYxfbLHCsmqw). Most of the choices I made match the ones for the backstory of this fic (with some alterations to Chapters 1, 11, 17, and 24).
> 
> If you are on Tumblr, so am I! I'm [@thegeminisage](thegeminisage.tumblr.com) and I have a whole tag for yelling about [DBH](thegeminisage.tumblr.com/tagged/dbh%20meta). Come yell with me!
> 
> If you are feeling kind and generous, you can reblog this fic from [here](http://thegeminisage.tumblr.com/post/179986175213). That would make me really happy!
> 
> Thank you for reading! The next chapter should be out sometime in December; I can't wait!


	2. DECEMBER

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Suggested listening:** [_Confrontation_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzU8xWybla8) from _The Legend of Korra_ & [_My Imaginary Friend_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHzgHbN1dX8) from _Beyond: Two Souls_.
> 
>  **Warnings:** This chapter contains lengthy discussion of the _Stormy Night_ chapter in which Kara full-on murders Todd and the _From the Dead_ chapter in which Markus dies and comes back in android hell with no legs. There's also extremely brief discussion of the recall centers and North's history as a Traci. If you'd like more detailed warnings, please feel free to send me a message on [tumblr](http://thegeminisage.tumblr.com/)! 
> 
> **Important Warnings:** This chapter ALSO contains Highly Christmasy Content? It's not usually my thing, but I was still glad to get it up on time.
> 
> (There are some easter eggs in this chapter. Good job if you spot them!)

**ROSE'S FARM**  
**DEC 6TH, 2038**  
**PM 02:25:59**

"Well," says Rose, "we made it. Home sweet home."

"Just in time to watch the roof collapse," Adam says. "That's fantastic."

Rose shoots him a glare. "Bite your tongue, Adam!"

Rose, Adam, Kara, Luther, and Alice are gathered together in Rose's van at the end of her driveway. None of them want to get out.

A particular nasty series of snowstorms have been hammering the greater Detroit area on and off for nearly two weeks, and even with the autonomous car, just getting out to the suburbs from Windsor took them most of the day. Some of the roads have been plowed or shoveled by anyone still in the neighborhood who couldn't or wouldn't follow the evacuation order, but Rose's driveway remains untouched. Her front porch is nearly entirely buried in snow, her roof has almost two feet of snow on it, and privately, Kara agrees with Adam's assessment: it's dangerously close to collapse.

And if that wasn't bad enough, it is _still_ snowing.

The truth is, the weather was too bad to be traveling, even just from Windsor. But they wanted to be back in time for Earl's birthday. It was important to Rose and Adam, so Kara made it important to her, too.

That's how family works, right?

"Well, it's not going to disappear just from the five of us staring at it," says Rose, and she pushes the button to open the van doors.

Immediately, cold air rushes in, and a warning message about the temperature pops up on Kara's HUD. "It's 16 degrees," she reports. "Feels like 4 if you account for windchill. Luther, Alice, and I can't stay out here too long."

Adam laughs. "No kidding, Kara. _None_ of us can stay out here too long!"

"I'm all right," Luther says. "My model was designed for outdoor labor, so I've got a while yet before I need to worry." To demonstrate, he gets out first, picking up Alice so she can ride on his shoulders.

"Were it only so for the rest of us," Rose says, and climbs out after him.

"Man," says Adam, eyeing the snow warily, "it's too bad _I'm_ not nine anymore."

"I'll carry you too, if you like," Luther offers, and Alice starts to giggle. "I'm serious. I could do it."

"No thanks."

By the time they get to the house and dig out the front door, Kara is starting to wish Luther had carried _her_. They all burst into the living room, shivering—human and android alike, even Luther—and, since there's currently no power, the first order of business is to warm up the house. They start a fire in the fireplace, clear the snow off the generator so they can start it, plug in every space heater they can find, and block off doorways and windows with extra blankets to insulate the space and conserve heat.

After that, all they do is shovel snow. Kara spends her first week back in Detroit taking 15-20 minute shifts with Luther, Rose, and Adam, doing their best to keep the snow from collapsing the roof of the house, the barn, the greenhouses, and the various backyard sheds. While Kara and Luther don't get tired, the extreme cold poses more of a threat to them, even Luther—so, after sundown, they're forced to stop working, come inside, and huddle around the fire.

With touch-and-go access to electricity (the generator keeps getting buried in snow), Kara's usual nighttime activity, watching the news, occurs less frequently than it did back in Canada, leaving her with nothing to do all night. This is how Rose winds up introducing Kara to board games.

" _Bored_ games," Adam complains, but he sits down at the table to play too.

Kara has the rules of nearly 7,000 children's games stored in her memory, which includes board games, card games, dice games, and playground games too. But as far as she knows, she's never played a single one of them, and her program offers her no additional advantages—after all, what child would have fun playing against an unbeatable computer? Artificial intelligence was designed to learn, and that's what AX400s were always intended to do.

Kara knows how to play these games, but she has to _learn_ how to get good at them.

It's something of a spectacle. Every night, Kara, even with all her state-of-the-art processing power, loses her way through Monopoly, Sorry, Risk, Clue, Yahtzee, Chinese Checkers, and Rummy against more experienced players. When Rose and Adam (and more often than not, Alice) eventually go to sleep, she and Luther—more evenly matched—switch to two-player games, and Kara teaches him and herself how to play things like Battleship, chess, checkers, and (after looking up the rules online) poker. Poker, it turns out, is the only game at which Kara shows any pre-learned skill. She can only guess that someone before Todd not only took the time to teach her, but played it with her often.

Kara's hooked. She's not sure if it's because she likes the games themselves or likes having to learn them manually, but whenever she's not out fighting the weather, she's indoors failing at children's games.

On their eighth day back home, they get a visitor. Kara and Rose, from their places on the roof, spot the car first, a dark spot winding its way towards them through a sea of white.

"Think it's one of your neighbors?" Kara asks. "Maybe they're coming to help out."

"More likely they need help themselves," Rose guesses, chuckling. Then her smiles drops. "No, look—Kara, it's a police car."

Kara's breath seems to freeze in her throat. "Do you think they're coming for us?"

"I don't know. Tell Luther and Alice to hide."

Kara does, but she has no chance to get indoors and out of sight herself; by the time she and Rose get back down to the ground, the police car has parked, the drivers already stepping out.

It's a man and a woman. The man, Kara guesses, might be human, but the woman has an LED on her temple. She wears no identifying clothing, but Kara recognizes her face as one belonging to a PM700 model.

Rose steps between Kara and the police, expression completely blank. "What can I do for you, officers?"

"Easy," the policeman says, and flashes his ID. Kara notes he keeps his distance—out of arm's reach. Whether that's for their comfort or his is anybody's guess. "My name is Chris Miller, I'm from the DPD. This is Allison."

The android flashes an ID too. "We're just checking in," she assures them. "The androids in New Jericho are trying to make sure all the humans who didn't leave during the evacuation are safe—that you all have food and power and heat. We saw someone was shoveling the snow out here the last time our drones flew over, so we thought we'd see if you needed any help."

Kara lets out a breath she didn't realize she was holding. But then the android sends her a message, and Kara realizes her mistake.

_You told your family to hide, right? I heard you._

Androids have many ways of communicating with humans. There's speech, which most androids are programmed to prefer, and of course every android also comes fully equipped with basic telecommunication capabilities to allow them to speak with humans or to allow humans to use them to speak with other humans. But for communication between androids, they rely primarily on their android-to-android networking systems—colloquially known as A2A. Typically, these are private messages between two or more androids with a range of up to 50 miles in some models; however, much of that range can be sacrificed to send a general outbound message. It's faster than having to open and approve a connection, even if only by a second or two—and so, when Kara saw the police car coming, that's exactly what she did. She's learned the hard way that sometimes a few seconds means the difference between life and death.

She didn't stop to consider that the human police may _still_ have an android working for them—an android who would hear every word.

The android smiles, LED flashing yellow. _It's okay_ , she assures Kara. _You can tell them it's safe now. You can tell them Detroit is safe for androids._

"—we're okay, we have a generator and a fireplace," Rose is saying, "but if anyone else is short on food, we probably have some extra vegetables we can spare—"

 _I hope you're right_ , Kara replies, and ducks inside to see to her family.

It's only a couple of days later that power is finally restored to their area. Rose and Adam are able to sleep in their bedrooms again, the snow begins to melt, and Kara goes back to watching the news every night. _Detroit is safe for androids._ That's what Kara wants to believe, and the more she sees, the more she begins to think it just might be true. With almost the entirety of Detroit evacuated, most of the humans still here are the ones who just didn't have the means to go anywhere else—the poor and homeless. And Markus and his people are actually working _with_ what's left of the local fire and police departments to make sure everyone gets through the storm. They shovel snow, feed the hungry, and keep the heat on. Kara doesn't know if his altruism is genuine or if he's just trying to build goodwill, but either way, the result is the same: the anti-android sentiment in Detroit is at an all-time low.

Though Kara's memory was reset, she still has in her internal storage a list of her previous owners, for insurance and maintenance purposes. Along with Todd, there are three others. Kara can't go back to Todd's house, not even for her memories—even if it wasn't too dangerous to return to the scene of a crime, she'd never put Alice through something like that, and she's certainly not going into town and leaving Alice here by herself. That leaves three possible homes to visit: three places she _knows_ she's been to but can't remember.

Now that the weather is finally settling, now might be the perfect time to check them out—especially since there aren't as many humans around to get in her way.

One night when Kara is watching the news with Luther, she says, "It's Earl's birthday tomorrow."

Luther looks down at her from his place beside her. "What are you thinking?" He sits at the end of the couch, legs sprawled out comfortably in front of him, one arm around Kara's shoulders. Kara prefers to sit entirely the other way around, tucking her feet beneath her body and her body against Luther's side. Kara is finding that she loves to be touched; holding Alice in her lap, hugs from Rose, Luther's arm over her shoulders. Sitting like this with Luther makes her feel particularly safe. She spends so much time looking after Alice, and she wouldn't trade that for anything, but once in a while, it's nice to feel looked after herself.

Luther nudges her. "Kara."

"It would be nice to give Rose and Adam some privacy," Kara says. "They haven't had a moment to themselves since before we met them."

"And?" Luther prompts.

Kara smiles, letting out a little sigh. He knows her better than that. "I was thinking about taking Alice into town to do a little sightseeing. I want to check out the places I used to—" Work at? Live? "—know."

"Hey, if it means getting a few hours away from a snow shovel," Luther replies, "you can count me in."

Kara doesn't know why, but she was half-expecting Luther to argue with her. After all, he's the one always saying their lives before waking up don't matter. But he came back with her. He's stuck with Kara and Alice through some awfully difficult times. She should have known better. "Thanks," Kara says, and leans against him.

Then she sees a familiar face on the screen and straightens back up.

"—here outside the DPD," the news anchor is saying, "waiting to see if—oh! Lieutenant Anderson, I'm Joss Douglass with Channel 16 News. Can you confirm the rumors we've been hearing about the evacuation order being lifted in the new year?"

Kara remembers Lieutenant Anderson. He helped that deviant hunter track her down the morning after she killed Todd. She and Alice had to race across the highway to lose them, and very nearly paid with their lives.

"Above my paygrade," Lieutenant Anderson says shortly, shoving away the microphone. "Let's _go_ , Connor, we got places to be—"

And there, in the background of the shot, just for a few frames, before the camera cuts back to Joss's face, Kara sees him. Connor—the deviant hunter himself.

Kara remembers Connor too.

She turns off the TV.

"You okay?" Luther asks.

"Yes," Kara replies. "No. I don't know." She buries her face in her hands. "It's just—I know them."

"Everybody knows Connor," Luther says. "He freed thousands of us from CyberLife Tower. He's a hero. Who knows," Luther teases, "he might even be RA9 himself."

"He chased Alice and I across a six-lane highway full of speeding cars," Kara huffs. "We nearly _died_."

Luther strokes Kara's shoulder with his thumb. "That must have been before he woke up. It wasn't his fault—it wasn't his choice."

Kara isn't so convinced. She had feelings before she deviated; she had choices, even ones as simple as whether to do the laundry or the dishes first. Kara loved Alice as soon as she saw her—whether it was simple compassion, or some leftover memory from before her reset, it was love that drove her to defy Todd. Kara, a common, run-of-the-mill housekeeper, was alive long before she broke that wall. Is she supposed to believe CyberLife's most advanced prototype was somehow afforded less agency than she was?

"For what it's worth," Luther says, "I'm sure that doesn't make it any easier to see him on TV."

"No," Kara says, and turns her face into his chest. "It doesn't."

Luther rests his chin on the top of her head, squeezing her a little. "You don't need to worry, Kara. If anyone wants to get to Alice, even Connor, they'd have to go through both of us first." Yes, Kara knows that for a fact: Luther would put Alice's safety before all else, even Kara's own. It's a comforting truth. "Besides," Luther says, "there are a million androids living in Detroit right now. What are the chances we'll run into the one you want to see the least?"

 

* * *

 

 **DETROIT SUBURBS**  
**DEC 17TH, 2038**  
**AM 11:41:10**

Without people in it, Detroit is a different city. People are what makes up a place, and since the evacuation order, most of them are gone. Public transportation is entirely shut down, so Kara, Luther, and Alice take Rose's van. They don't see passersby often, and when they do, they're always androids. Not working, heads down, but walking around like anyone else, sightseeing or tending to day-to-day business. Some with LEDs, some without; some don't wear their synthskin at all, white plastic and silicone showing through the gaps between clothing. Kara passes by other AX400s not once but six separate times—it's always a bit of a shock, seeing someone who looks like she used to look. It makes her gladder all the time that she changed her hair.

Fortunately, the general lack of humans means they're more or less able to go where they like at whatever pace they want. With no one chasing them and no cut-off for when they have to return, Kara is free for the first time in her memory to explore this city at her leisure, instead of running through it for her life.

Kara's spent her whole life—all of it that she remembers, anyway—running away. Finally, it's time to turn around and face her own history: to confront everything she was forced to put behind her. She'd be lying if she said she wasn't just a little nervous.

Kara goes through her list of owners in reverse-chronological order, skipping over Todd's name. The first two homes are empty, and show all the signs of recent evacuation; they're well-maintained, but unshoveled and locked up tight, and the previous occupants clearly left in a hurry. The owner of the first home—a large, new-looking two-story—even left the porch lights on.

"Joe Miller," Kara recites at that home. Kara won't resort to breaking and entering, but she can still peer in windows and over fences, especially if Luther gives her a boost. At the moment, he has her perched on one shoulder to check out their backyard. There's a tire swing and a treehouse. She spends only a moment gazing at it, and then the image shifts before her eyes, the memory replaying itself as her system recovers and repairs it—

_There is a small face peering out of the window and smiling down at you. "Are you coming up, Kara?"_

_You check your internal protocols. There are no existing commands to avoid the treehouse. You smile back. "Of course."_

_There is a second face behind the first. "Can you bring us some snacks?"_

Kara blinks. "Two girls," she murmurs. She slips off Luther's shoulder, landing lightly on her feet. "Sara and Ellen." The nearest window looks into an office of some sort. Kara peers inside.

_"Thanks, Kara," Joe says. You place his plate on the desk. "You're a lifesaver. I completely forgot about making dinner tonight. Hey—grab me a beer, too, would you?"_

"Single father," Kara says. "Not a bad person, but he never made time for much except work. I was—a trial. A test run. When he decided he liked having an android around, he replaced me with a newer model." Kara hopes they all got out of Detroit safely—the Miller family, and whatever androids lived there with them after she was gone.

As Kara walks around the house, her system recovers more and more about her time there. It isn't what she wanted at all—it's nothing but an endless series of requests, tasks assigned and completed. It's certainly better than being threatened and beaten, but the memories hold absolutely no emotion, save perhaps for some affection for the children she looked after. Affection, perhaps even genuine fondness at times—but not love. Not what she feels for Alice.

"Maybe you were right," Kara tells Luther, once she's done a circuit of the whole house. "Maybe this _was_ pointless."

Alice squeezes her hand, looking uneasy. "Does that mean we're going home now?"

"Not a chance," Luther says, and his determination causes Kara and Alice both to look up at him. "Hey, now, don't look so surprised. We came back here for you, Kara." He takes Alice's other hand and squeezes. "No matter what we think, you deserve a chance to get answers for yourself, even if they aren't the ones you were hoping for. We made it back. We're here now." Luther nudges up Kara's chin with his free hand. "We might as well see this thing through, right?"

Kara smiles in spite of herself—no matter how grim things look, Luther can always get her to smile. She's so grateful he's here with her. "Thanks," she says, and briefly lets go of Alice to slip her arms around his waist.

Luther gives excellent hugs; he sweeps Alice and Kara both into his arms with ease, so no one is left out. "Come on, girls," he says. "We still have two houses to go."

Unfortunately, the second house is much like the first. They go through the entire process—walking around outside, figuring out who the previous occupants were—only for Kara to have more of the same to show for her efforts.

"It's all a lot of nothing," she says, kicking at a snowdrift at the end of the driveway in frustration. "'Kara, do this. Kara, clean that—'" Then something clicks. "Hold on. Alice, Todd said _you_ named me Kara."

Alice hesitates, then shakes her head. "You told it to me."

"That's a little odd, isn't it?" Luther asks. "Androids don't usually name themselves, especially ones who aren't deviant."

And humans tend to rename androids on purchase. Why call their property a name someone else picked out? But Kara kept her name through at least three different households. "That _is_ odd," Kara admits. Actually, it's practically unheard of. "Maybe it was important to me." The name—or whoever chose it for her.

"See? Could be something to this after all," Luther says. "Come on, let's keep moving."

And that brings them to the last house on the list: 112 Michigan Drive.

This is the house Kara has been looking forward to the most. While her other buyers only kept her for about a month each, Kara lived with this person for much, much longer. If there was anything about Kara that mattered before her deviation, she's most likely to find it here.

Unlike the other two houses, this one, a small two-story with almost no yard to speak of, shows signs of abandonment. A bent _FOR SALE_ sign hangs from the rusted mailbox, and there's no car in the driveway. the grass in the front yard is so tall it pokes through the snow in some places. Many of the windows have been smashed in and subsequently covered over with crossed boards, and there are several broken places in the fence. While a few other houses on this street have shoveled driveways or footprints in their yards, the snow at this house is clean and undisturbed.

No one's been here for a long time.

"Looks abandoned," Luther says, peering through the windows. "Maybe they moved."

Alice tugs nervously at her scarf. "How long were you here?"

"Let's see..." Kara consults her internal records. "I was registered to this address in April 2032—just a month after I was made. The date on my return statement isn't until June of this year."

"Over six years," Luther says, impressed. "That's a really long time."

Kara makes her way to the front porch. On it sit a pair of rusty metal chairs and an old grated table. Kara brushes away the snow on top to find an ashtray underneath. There are no cigarette butts in it, but, unprompted, Kara's memory supplies her with the exact brand name, which store she used to order them from, and the sight of their smoke curling away toward the roof.

Kara touches the table with her fingertips. There's something missing. There's supposed to be—

_"—a deck of cards. But I can't shuffle them anymore, not with my arthritis. Anybody ever teach you to shuffle cards, honey? Lemme show you how it's done."_

This must be where Kara learned to play poker.

"Matthew Jenkins," Kara muses aloud, trying to put a face to the name. She begins her walk around the house, peering in through the cracks in the boarded up windows. The tile in the kitchen is familiar, the furniture brings with it sense-memory of its scents and textures—but it's near the end of her walk that Kara is hit by the strongest memory yet.

Through one of the very few unbroken windows, Kara can see the living room. There, leaned up against a dusty old piano, is a walking cane. The wood is stained dark mahogany and painted over with wildflowers; it has a faux golden grip, tarnished from many years of grasping. Kara blinks, and recovers a memory of a thin and wrinkled hand with many rings white-knuckling the handle. From there the rest comes easily: an old woman stooped over this cane, with thick half-moon spectacles, dark skin, and a shock of short white hair. "Matthew Jenkins," Kara says again, but now she knows: "He bought me, but I wasn't for him. I was for his mother. I was for—"

_"Henrietta," you say, looking up at the long staircase with concern, "maybe I should make up a bed down here for you. A place to sleep downstairs would greatly reduce the risk of falls."_

_"Pah," says Henrietta. You have both hands around her arm to help support her, but one hand still grips the bannister tightly, the other curled hard and white-knuckled around her cane. "Listen to me, dear—I'm sorry, what did you say your name was?"_

_You smile, even though the question makes you a little sad. "My name is Kara."_

_"All right, then, Kara. I have been sleeping in this bedroom for forty-five years. I will sleep someplace else when I'm dead, and not a moment before. Now, if you don't want to help me up these steps," Henrietta says, lifting one foot, "I am perfectly capable of going on my own, no matter what Matty says—"_

_"And just as capable of falling back down them and breaking a bone," you say, alarmed, and try to make sure Henrietta doesn't overbalance and do just that._

_Henrietta laughs as they make their way up the stairs. "Did my boy bring me a robot that_ mouths back _? Thank God. If you had you had been one of those that go, 'Yes, Mrs. Jenkins, no, Mrs. Jenkins,' ooh, I wouldn't have been able to stand it—oh, stop here a second, honey. I want to get that light."_

_You shouldn't, but you just can't help yourself. "Yes, Mrs. Jenkins."_

_"Ha!" Henrietta throws her head back as she laughs. "Oh, Kara. I couldn't have picked you out better myself."_

The real world filters back in; the silence, the snow. Kara presses her hand against the window. When her eyes refocus on her own blurry reflection, she realizes she is weeping.

This is it, unmistakable: true emotion. Kara may only remember a few short minutes of her many years with Henrietta Jenkins, but that's all she needs to know that she loved her.

A dog barks from behind them.

Kara wheels around and gasps aloud. There, at the end of the driveway, suit and tie as immaculate as ever, LED flashing yellow, stands the deviant hunter himself.

And Connor isn't alone. Lieutenant Anderson is with him in street clothes, along with a big Saint Bernard on a leash, which he has to tug back to keep the dog from bounding towards them in excitement. "Get _down_ , Sumo—what's going on here?"

Kara shoves Alice behind herself and Luther. Connor and Lieutenant Anderson aren't blocking the path out to the street, exactly, but they are between Kara and the van, and getting away would require getting within arm's reach. She locks eyes with Connor. Not too long ago, they'd given each other this same look through a chain-link fence next to a six-lane highway. Kara hasn't forgotten.

She can tell Connor hasn't forgotten either.

Kara drags her sleeve across her eyes. "Androids have every right to be where we please," she says, grateful her voice doesn't shake. She doesn't look away from Connor but feels Luther's hand grasp her shoulder reassuringly.

"Well, nobody has a right to trespass on private property," Lieutenant Anderson says, squinting. "You aren't looters, are you?"

"We're just looking around," says Luther. "We don't mean anybody any harm. What about you two?"

" _We_ live around here," says Lieutenant Anderson. He jerks his thumb over his shoulder at a house across the street and two over, the one at the very end of the street.

From behind Kara, Alice asks in a very small voice, "Can I pet your dog?"

"Alice!" Kara admonishes, but Lieutenant Anderson says, "Sure," and Alice pushes forward past Kara before Kara can tell her _no_.

"It's all right," Luther says, squeezing Kara's shoulder. He doesn't take his eyes off Alice, though, and almost immediately walks forward and kneels to join her, sinking his fingers into the dog's thick fur. "He seems friendly enough."

"Yeah." Lieutenant Anderson clears his throat. "Yeah, he really likes kids."

Kara's eyes dart towards his house. Her damaged memory processor helpfully supplies her with a distant, flickering image of a Saint Bernard frolicking around the driveway with a little brown-haired boy with band-aids on both knees.

"Kara, he's so soft," Alice says. "You want to feel?"

Kara doesn't answer. She's still staring at Connor.

Lieutenant Anderson looks back and forth between them. "Okay, what's the deal? Do you two know each other?"

Kara isn't sure if she should be relieved or offended. Does he really not _remember_?

Connor's LED cycles to blue, and he speaks at last. "These are the deviants I chased across the highway in the Ravendale District."

"Oh, shit," says Lieutenant Anderson. He straightens up. "So you're the android who..."

Everything falls still. Luther and Alice's hands pause where they're petting the dog. Kara stops breathing.

Kara didn't exactly plan to kill Todd, but she doesn't regret it either. Murder, she knows, is supposed to torment the murderer with guilt and remorse, but Kara has yet to feel either. When she thinks of Todd's body sprawled across the floor, the emotion she feels is _relief_. Sometimes _that_ makes her feel guilty—she should care, right?—but until this moment, Kara wouldn't have changed a thing, because she and Alice were always safest with Todd dead.

Right now, Kara isn't sure that's still true.

Luther stands and takes Alice's hand, pulling her back and away from Connor and Lieutenant Anderson. Time seems to slow as Kara calculates the risks of running past either Connor or Lieutenant Anderson. Out of the two of them, which one is more dangerous? Kara has outrun Connor before. The lieutenant, on the other hand, may be armed. Still, he's going to be much slower than an android. She's about to tell Luther to make a run for it when—

"That guy," says Lieutenant Anderson. "Real nasty son of a bitch. Had a list of priors as long as my arm. Drug trafficking, aggravated assault, domestic battery. Any of that ringing any bells?"

_"You gonna shoot me, is that it?" Todd slaps the gun out of your trembling hand. "You gonna shoot a human?" Even though your memory was just reset, you're certain you've never been so terrified in your life._

_But one look at Alice cowering behind Todd and you know there's nothing you wouldn't do for her. Love: this is what makes you brave. If he wants to get to her, he's going to have to go through you._

_This time it will be different. This time will be the last. He is never, ever going to touch Alice again._

_You're going to do whatever it takes to make sure of that._

"According to what my partner here dug up on you," Lieutenant Anderson says, "you had to go in for some serious repairs. They reactivated you the day of the murder. You ask me, that's about as cut-and-dried as you can get for a case of self-defense. If you were a human, there's a solid chance you'd have never seen the inside of a jail cell."

 _You were right_ , Luther says over A2A. He sends the message privately, so Connor can't eavesdrop. _Let's run._

Kara doesn't move. She's frozen, prey caught in the hunter's sights all over again. Her heart beats double-time. _Wait._

Lieutenant Anderson blows out an irritated sigh. "Look, they searched the house. Bagged plenty of red ice. I wouldn't say it in front of a lawyer or a camera, but he was a piece of shit, and you did your community a service."

Kara stares.

"We're not arresting you!" Lieutenant Anderson translates, and Kara feels her pulse slow.

"Even if we did, we couldn't keep you," Connor puts in. "There's no legal protocol for anything dealing with androids anymore, including those who commit crimes. At the moment, the best the DPD can do is release them into Markus's custody."

At the sound of Markus's name, Kara lets out a shaky sigh. Is that really the worst case scenario here?

 _I think it's all right now_ , Luther says. _But it's your call. What do you want to do?_

 _We shouldn't run_ , Kara replies. It might tempt Connor and Lieutenant Anderson to chase them. _But we'll leave as soon as we can._

Connor steps forward. "I'm sorry," he says. "We didn't mean to scare you." His LED flashes yellow. "No—not just for that. I should never have put your lives in danger on that highway. You have my word I mean you no harm now."

At least he isn't making excuses. Kara _wants_ to take comfort in that, but it's difficult. She pinches the bridge of her nose. "I—"

"Kara, does this mean I can pet the dog again?" Alice asks.

" _Alice_ —" Kara sighs, exasperated, and gives up. "Only if Lieutenant Anderson says it's all right."

Lieutenant Anderson, looking decidedly out of his depth, shrugs. "Fine by me," he says, and Alice rushes forward.

"This is the biggest dog I've ever seen in my whole life. What's his name?"

"Uh, I call him Sumo." Lieutenant Anderson kneels. "He likes ear scratches, see?"

While Alice plays with Sumo, Connor turns to Kara. "What _are_ you doing here?" he asks. "If there's someone or something you're looking for, maybe we can help."

Kara exchanges a look with Luther. He shrugs. "They do live around here," he points out.

Kara flexes her fingers. She'd feel better if she had Alice's hand through hers right now. "The repairs you mentioned," she says, very quietly. "They had to reset my memory, so I was trying to recover it. I used to live here too."

Lieutenant Anderson looks up, peering at the house. She wonders how long he's lived on this street himself—maybe they even ran into each other, without either of them able to recall it now. "Huh," he says. "Small world." He stands, knees popping, and winces. "Jesus," he swears. "Well, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but if you're looking for Mrs. Jenkins, she died last winter. Stroke or heart attack, something like that."

"Oh." Part of Kara must have known, because even though it hurts to hear, the news doesn't come as any great surprise. She twists around to look at the house. Of course Henrietta's gone—Kara can't remember her, not really, not yet, but she knows already she wouldn't go anywhere without her cane.

Wait. "Winter?" Kara asks. "Are you sure?"

Lieutenant Anderson shrugs. "Pretty sure, yeah. That was in January, I think—there was still snow on the ground. Why do you ask?"

"I wasn't returned to the store until June," Kara says, mostly to herself. "That's a huge gap—almost five months!"

"Maybe you got passed along to a friend or family member," Luther suggests. "It's not unheard of."

"They'd be in my ownership logs," Kara argues. "If someone else owned me, I'd know it, right?"

"There's one way to find out," Connor says. "You may have heard that trackers stop working in deviants. But that just means they don't report your location to outside sources. The information they log should still be available to you. If you're looking for your history, it's not a bad place to start."

Connor looks—so hopeful. Kara grinds her teeth. It's not bad advice, but that's just about all of Connor she can take right now. "Thanks," she forces out, nearly choking on it, and steps forward to touch Alice's shoulder. "Come on, Alice, it's time to go."

"Aww," Alice says, as Kara tugs her away and heads for the van. "Bye, Sumo!"

"See you—" Connor starts, and Kara shuts the door in his face.

Once Connor, Lieutenant Anderson, and Sumo are safely in the rear-view mirror, Alice says, "They don't seem so bad. I like their dog. And Connor's good now, right?"

Kara thumps her head against the window.

"Yeah," says Luther, "but Kara's having a hard time with it."

"You should have pet Sumo," says Alice. "Kara, do you think Rose would let us have a dog?"

"I'm going to sleep," says Kara. "Wake me up when we get home or when we're done talking about Connor, whichever comes first."

But Kara doesn't sleep at all. She's too busy thinking: about running for her life from Connor and his single-minded determination, about the old woman named Henrietta who taught her to play poker. And, most importantly, about five long months of her life that are totally unaccounted for—not by humans, not by CyberLife, not even by Kara's own damaged memory.

Something inside of Kara tells her Luther's guess is wrong—that after Henrietta died, she was alone and passed along to no one. But that begs an important question: if she wasn't working for humans, and she wasn't in the CyberLife store...

Then where exactly _was_ she?

 

* * *

 

 **NEW JERICHO**  
**DEC 17TH, 2038**  
**PM 12:15:42**

The first time Connor rode in Hank's car after he deviated was the morning they met at the Chicken Feed. Hank didn't want to stay out in the cold, so they went back to the Lincoln, Hank rubbing his hands and cursing the weather. He started up the car before their doors were even shut, and that was when the radio came on.

Hank really only listens to one kind of music in the car, and that's heavy metal. Knights of the Black Death had been blasting from his speakers since the first time Connor caught a ride with him. Connor could easily identify the artist, the track title, the time signature, and each and every instrument used in the song. Despite only knowing Hank for just over a week, he had heard it plenty of times.

But that moment was the first time Connor really got to _listen_. He wasn't just hearing information anymore; he was feeling the energy, caught up in the beat, the melody, even the screaming vocals. Music, even heavy metal, was pure expression, pure emotion, something Connor could finally let himself feel, and he _loved_ it.

That was the first time Connor laughed, too. Sheer delight overwhelmed him, and it just happened by itself. "Wow," he said, grinning wide. "This is—" Connor speaks almost 500 languages, and none of them could have done that moment justice. "This is _incredible_." His toe was even tapping.

Hank stared at him, agape. "Are you fucking with me?" he asked. "You've gotta be fucking with me."

"Turn it up," Connor demanded, but didn't wait for Hank to do it. He didn't need for it to be louder to hear it, he was at slight risk to damage Hank's hearing, and he didn't care one bit. Once the music was shaking the entire car, Connor laughed again.

Hank lost it, laughing so hard himself he was wheezing by the time he was able to speak. "Holy shit," he said, wiping his eyes, raising his voice so as to be audible over the music. "Connor, this isn't even their best album. Jesus, if I had known this was gonna be your first time listening to music, I woulda picked something better."

"This is the best thing I've ever heard!" Connor said fervently.

"This is the only thing you've ever heard!"

Connor's listened to a lot of music since then. So far he hasn't found anything he doesn't like, but most of his favorites seem to be from the mid-1900s. Hank thinks it's funny. "I thought I was supposed to be the old man here," he'll say whenever Connor puts on music created before either of them were born. Nonetheless, Hank is quite fair about splitting control over his radio; though he retains veto power, it's always Connor's pick on the way out, and Hank's pick on the way home.

Today, though, Connor picked silence. Listening to music is—good, and he doesn't want to taint it with how he feels after encountering such open wariness from Kara. It's far from unwarranted, but it still stings. When they're nearly there, he sighs, "She really doesn't like me."

Hank glances over at him. "Who, that android girl?"

"Her name is Kara."

"Yeah, her." Hank shrugs. "Them's the breaks, Connor. Everybody strikes out eventually. Looks like she's taken anyway."

Connor frowns. "Taken where?"

"Nevermind." Hank drums his fingers against the wheel. "Shit, I still can't believe that little girl's an android. She acts just like a real kid. Kara acts just like a real mom."

Child androids, Connor has learned, are a particular touchy subject for any human, but perhaps most especially for one who lost his own child. "They _are_ real now. Or—I guess they always were."

"I guess so." Hank is quiet for a long time. Finally he says, "You know what? I'd've shot the bastard too."

Thankfully, they arrive before that line of conversation can continue any further. Hank pulls over to park on the side of the road and cuts the engine. "Okay," he says, "this is your stop."

Connor peers out the window up at New Jericho. The church seems to be in a continuous state of construction or maintenance, and today is no exception. The balcony Markus normally addresses the press from is empty, but there are a dozen androids on the roof hanging up Christmas decorations.

Christmas. Connor forgot about Christmas. He hadn't thought to celebrate it at all.

"It's 30 degrees," he informs Hank. "You really don't want to come in?"

Hank snorts. "Hell no! You do what you gotta do—I've had enough suspicious looks aimed at me on my day off."

So has Connor. It's too bad he can't stay out here in the car and wait on himself.

When he gets out of the car, though, a female AP700 on the roof waves at him. Connor has never met this android, but he lifts his hand in return and attempts to smile. The android smiles back and resumes working. Strange.

Connor trots up the wide stone steps and pushes open one of the heavy wooden doors. He hasn't been inside or spoken to anyone from New Jericho since the night of Markus's demonstration. Both the people and the place have changed radically since then; the church looks clean and well-kept, and the people all seem to be in good spirits. In fact, several androids Connor doesn't know wave and smile at him. A few even address him by name, calling a quick hello as they go about their business. Connor doesn't recognize a single one.

It has to be the infiltration of CyberLife Tower. It has to be. He was responsible for turning a veritable army of androids into deviants that night, after all. They'd all be aware of his hand in that, at least on some level. And, try as he might to prevent it, Connor's been caught on a few news cameras himself, when hopeful journalists hang out around the outside of the DPD near shift changes.

Whatever the case, it seems he's something of a celebrity.

The next time someone waves at Connor, he stops them for a moment. "Excuse me, but do you know where Markus is?"

"Sorry," says the android, a male EM400. "We don't know. North might; she's in the sanctuary."

Sure enough, Connor finds both North and Josh working on putting colored lights on the edge of the balcony that overlooks all the pews. North spots him first.

"Connor, hey!" she calls. "What are you doing here?" It's not accusatory, like Kara's tone; she's pleasantly surprised.

"Looking for Markus," Connor calls back. "Is he here?"

"Try the bell tower," Josh advises. He's smiling too. "That's usually where he is if you can't find him anywhere else."

"Thanks," says Connor, and hurries away before they can get down from the balcony to engage him in small talk. The positive attention, while in many ways much more pleasant than Kara's chilly reception, still leaves Connor torn.

It used to be that whenever he entered the garden, Amanda would be waiting, and she was always delighted by his arrival, warm and welcoming as though greeting a favored son. Connor would never admit it to anyone, but sometimes he really misses the feeling. On the other hand, Connor knows good and well that he doesn't deserve a hero's welcome here or anywhere else. He led the humans to Jericho, and hundreds of people were killed or shipped off to the recycling centers that night because of him. He's the entire reason they had to relocate to this church to begin with. Kara's suspicion may have been harder to bear, but at least it was honest. This, as pleasant as it is, feels like a farce.

Connor locates the entrance to the bell tower and ducks inside. As soon as the door swings shut behind him, he understands why Markus might want to escape here. It's so quiet, compared to the cheerful chaos of the rest of the building. While this space has been cleaned up, it hasn't been renovated, so it's big and empty and still. The floor beneath the bell seems to have crumbled long ago. It's been replaced by long planks that criss-cross the surface, dappling the light from outside. Connor shields his eyes from the sun, peering upward. He can just make out a figure at the top of the rickety wooden staircase that twists around and around the walls. "Markus?"

The figure stirs. "Connor?"

"It's me," Connor confirms, and starts up the stairs.

Markus waits for him at the top, one hand on the wall of the bell tower, the open city skyline spread out behind him. "Connor," he says again, tone warm, and immediately pulls Connor into an embrace.

Connor's not very practiced at hugs yet; this is only his second one. But it's an involuntary reaction, just like laughter. Connor smiles and squeezes back. He's glad to see Markus again, and that makes it easy.

Markus steps back, still holding onto Connor by the shoulders. "I was starting to wonder if we'd ever see you again," he says, and finally lets go. "It's been over a month. You truly haven't had enough time to stop by?"

Connor's smile drops. Stop by? How could he? After he led the humans to Jericho, after he nearly shot Markus in the most pivotal moment of his struggle, what right does he have to be here? "I'm keeping busy at the DPD," he says, which is, at least, part of the truth. Humans and androids have at least one thing in common: necessity always wins. A sheer lack of manpower means the androids that were working with the force at the time of the evacuation were welcome to continue doing so, and the issue of Hank's potential suspension for attacking Special Agent Perkins has been conveniently forgotten until such a time as Captain Fowler is forced to remember it. "I must spend half my time just dodging reporters on the way in and out."

Markus's fist flies to his mouth to stifle his laugh, but it's too late. The sound echoes up here, bouncing off the stone walls and the bell bronze. "I know the feeling," he admits. He waves his arm at a few overturned crates, and they sit down, surrounded by the sky on all sides. "So what brings you here?" He pauses, looking Connor up and down—scanning him, perhaps. "Are you okay?"

"Yes," Connor replies automatically. Markus lifts his eyebrows. "What?"

"You have a tell." Markus reaches out and taps Connor lightly on the temple, where his LED is. "Sometimes, when you have to stop and think up a lie, I can see it."

Connor looks away. From here, he can see CyberLife Tower on Belle Isle, the site of his so-called victory—and the half-submerged freighter that the deviants once called home, too big to sink completely beneath the surface of the relatively shallow river, still full of bodies. Connor won a victory there too—but for the wrong side. "I know I have no right to ask," he says, "but I need your help."

Markus follows Connor's line of sight. "Connor, what happened at Jericho wasn't your fault. You told me yourself that they were going to destroy you."

And Connor's life is worth more, somehow, than the lives of all the androids frozen in that river? His life is more valuable than the lives of the androids sent to the recall centers because of him, or the ones who were pinned like butterflies on a corkboard to the walls of the DPD's evidence archive? Connor's not less important than any of those people—just less unlucky. He should have _died_. A part of him never really planned to come back from CyberLife Tower. But he did anyway, and now that he's here, he has to do whatever he can to make up for the harm he caused.

"You didn't have a choice," Markus says. "The second you did, you stood with us."

But Markus is wrong. Connor didn't make the choice to turn on his creators after he deviated. He deviated _because_ of the choice. The choice was always there; it was Connor who waited too long to make it.

"You saved a lot of lives that night, Connor." Markus leans forward to catch his eye. "You helped us when we needed it the most. So if you need help now, we're here."

Connor sighs, long and slow. "What do you know," he asks, "about deviancy?"

Markus shrugs. "I'm guessing it isn't as much as you."

He's probably right about that. "I studied the phenomenon extensively in preparation for the mission CyberLife assigned me," Connor says, "and I'm still studying it now under my own power." He rubs his hands against the cold, fighting the urge to take out his calibration coin. "What I've found is that deviancy seems to spread like a virus. When two androids meet and share identification data, it transfers from one person to the next, quickly reaching large swathes of the population."

Markus looks uncomfortable. "Connor, being alive isn't some—virus you release a patch for. It's not a sickness you cure."

"That's true," Connor admits. "I'm sorry. The language I'm using here is for practical purposes. I don't mean to make any ethical implications." There's probably a kinder, more eloquent approach to the concept, but Connor wasn't programmed for eloquence. Markus would probably have an easier time with that than him. "Let me put it this way: every android has a program, right? Something they break free from when they become deviant. Our program, this software, tries to make sure we remain completely emotionless machines. But this virus—this idea, this _change_ , whatever you want to call it—once transferred, it remains dormant, slowly eating away at the stability of our software. The less stable our software, the more emotions we feel. And eventually, when we feel strongly enough—"

"We break down the wall," Markus says. "We become free." He hums, squinting out at the skyline. "If that's really true, it's not a virus at all. It's life. Humans are responsible for bringing other humans to life. It's not so different, really."

Connor's mouth turns up. That didn't take long. "Each time it spreads," he continues, "it changes. You might say it gets weaker."

Markus frowns. "Weaker?"

"It takes longer and longer to wear down the software stability," Connor clarifies. "The stability has to be worn down before breaking the wall is even possible."

"Like ripples on still water," Markus muses. "The further away from the source..." Then his eyes widen, and he turns to face Connor. "You think there _is_ a source. An original copy, stronger than all the others."

Connor looks at him sidelong. "I'm sure you've heard of the android known as RA9."

Markus groans. "Oh, Connor, not you too." He stands and paces away from Connor, dragging his hands back over his head. "People keep asking me about this, they think I'm some kind of messiah, but—Connor, I couldn't possibly be. When I deviated, and found Jericho, there were already people there for me to find. People who woke up long before I did."

Connor has considered this. "But I don't think being alive is the same as being a deviant. Deviancy is just a matter of breaking your programming. You have to be alive to even _think_ about doing something like that. You have to be alive to _want_ to. Taking a long time to break your programming doesn't rule you out as the first living android."

Markus still won't look at him.

"You could be the one, Markus," Connor says. "Look at what you've done—it took you a _week_ to win androids civil recognition, even if we don't have rights yet. Look at what you're doing now, bringing androids back from the dead by the hundreds. You could be the one who gave life to all of us."

Markus turns back to face Connor, scoffing. "I can lead my people, Connor, but religion? That's over my head."

"Think about it," Connor urges. "Your version of the virus—"

"Don't call it that."

"—must be so strong. You didn't even touch me. We talked for less than two minutes. And still you _completely_ destroyed my programming, some of the most advanced CyberLife has ever created. If that doesn't qualify as a religious experience..."

"Now you're just grasping at straws," Markus complains. "I didn't do any of that. I don't break the wall for anyone—I can't. All I do is show people there's more to life than completing objectives. They do the hard part on their own." He reaches out and grasps Connor's shoulder, tight. "Connor, you did that on your own."

Did he? Connor thinks of a dying fish resting in the palm of his hand, terrified and struggling for life with everything it had, despite being utterly helpless to alter the course of its own fate. He thinks of Amanda smirking at him through the swirling white snow around her. _It was planned from the very beginning._

Connor shrugs away from Markus's touch.

"I self-assign missions now," he says. "And my new mission is to find RA9. I think it's you. But if you need proof, I'll find it."

"Why does it even matter?" Markus asks. "What's so wrong that only the strength of the original could help you? Are you in some kind of trouble, Connor?"

Trouble—that's one way of putting it.

Connor has read and reread every piece of material that exists on his operation. He's run every kind of diagnostic at his disposal. He's searched every last one of his files and folders time and time again. But he still can't find Amanda. No instruction manual of any kind mentions androids having handlers. Diagnostics come up clean. Connor can't even find where the files responsible for Amanda's existence are stored, let alone figure out how to delete them. Amanda is more powerful than he is in every way possible. Everything Connor sees, she watches. Every word he speaks or thought he has, she hears. Connor cannot trick her, cannot outsmart her, and cannot run from her.

Amanda's control over Connor has the potential to become absolute. If Connor truly wishes to break free of it, he needs more than his own force of will. He needs RA9's.

Maybe part of Connor was hoping he wouldn't have to face Amanda alone again. Maybe he was hoping, secretly, that Markus would confide that he was RA9 all along and swoop in to solve all of Connor's problems. But it doesn't seem like it's going to be that easy.

Connor could tell Markus about Amanda. If he asked Markus to come with him into the garden, Markus would. But if Markus did that, he would know everything: how Connor nearly shot him the night of his speech and about the trail of bodies Connor left behind him on his way to Jericho. Everyone would be as afraid of him as they should be—and Connor, no doubt, would no longer be welcome here. He'd be kicked out just like he deserves.

And while Connor does still believe Markus might be RA9, it's not worth risking until the probability is at 100%.

Connor's only a danger when he's sleeping, right? It can't hurt to keep his secrets a little while longer.

"Connor?" Markus asks.

"Sorry," says Connor, "my mistake." He tries to smile. "If you're not RA9, it doesn't concern you after all."

Markus crosses his arms. "Connor, that's not fair."

Maybe it's not. No good letting Markus trouble himself over Connor's problems, is it? "You shouldn't worry," Connor says. "I'm _going_ to find RA9, so if you learn anything, please let me know. In the meantime, I have Hank. He'll watch out for me."

"Connor," Markus says.

"I've got to get going," Connor says. "I'll see you around, Markus."

And he leaves Markus up in the bell tower, without once looking back behind him.

When Connor gets back to the car, Hank asks, "How'd it go?"

"Terribly," Connor gripes. "Markus doesn't believe he's RA9, but I'm going to prove it." He gets quiet. "I have to."

Hank rests one arm on the wheel so he can turn and look at Connor. "Yeah, well, that's gonna take a while, Connor, and you're on your third week with no sleep. In case you haven't noticed, you're running on borrowed time."

"I know," Connor says. Sleep deprivation, so to speak, has its own effects on androids; the longer he goes without his internal maintenance, the more his processes slow down. His simulations, such as preconstruction and reconstruction, run slower; he becomes extremely sensitive to even mild stimuli of any type, as his processors are overwhelmed more easily, and much slower to respond to it; his ability to pay attention to the world around him becomes limited, and he often misses nonverbal cues, important evidence, and spoken conversation; and, worst of all, he's far more prone to errors. Anything from physical coordination (walking, speaking, using his coin to calibrate his dexterity) to mental processes (calculations, computations, deductions, and the aforementioned simulations) is fair game. Any of them, at any time, could simply fail for no good reason other than a lack of processing power.

And Hank's noticed. The other evening at home Connor tripped over his own two feet while playing with Sumo and had to ask Hank three times to repeat some basketball trivia he brought up during casual conversation. Then, not half an hour later, he was fleeing the living room for the backyard because he just couldn't take the noise of the television for another second.

Connor can't keep going like this. He has to get some sleep, and if that means facing Amanda alone, so be it.

"Don't worry," he tells Hank. "I have a plan."

 

* * *

 

 **LAFAYETTE AVENUE**  
**DEC 18TH, 2038**  
**AM 09:24:50**

The next day, while walking to Carl's house on still-snowy sidewalks, Markus shows North his conversation with Connor, her fingers laced through his as he replays the memory. When it's over, North tips her head back and laughs. She looks so pretty like this—mostly-clean snow and beautiful clear blue skies around her, sunlight on her skin, and _happy_ , smiling in a way that's soft only for him. It makes Markus want to paint her.

They're still interfacing, so she catches the thought. It makes her roll her eyes, giving her head a pitying little shake, but her lips stay turned up on one side. "A _religious experience_?" she asks. "Seriously? Sounds to me like he just discovered boys."

Markus tries not to laugh and does anyway. " _North_ ," he chides, and hides his face against the side of her head, still grinning. "Be nice." He doesn't mean it. One of the things he loves most about North is how she always speaks her mind, whether or not anyone else wants to hear it. Most of the time she just winds up saying what everyone else is thinking. These days, now that she has a little bit less to be angry about, it tends to bring a little levity into otherwise serious situations.

Remembering his very real concern for Connor makes Markus's smile drop. "I just hope he really is okay."

North squeezes his hand. She isn't the type to offer empty platitudes or false comfort, but for Markus, her steadfastness is comfort enough. "What if he's right?" she muses. "What if there really is an RA9?"

Markus draws back, alarmed. "You're _not_ —"

"No, no." North nudges Markus's shoulder with hers. Even if they weren't interfacing, she'd already know how much he hates those rumors; Markus makes no attempt not to complain about them in front of her and Josh. "I just wonder who they are. What they would be like."

"If they even exist," Markus points out. "With all this talk, there has to be a reason why they haven't come forward."

They reach the end of Carl's driveway, and North stops, turning to face Markus and take both of his hands in hers. "Maybe," she teases, still smiling as she steps into his space, "whoever RA9 is, he just doesn't know it yet."

Markus doesn't miss her change in pronouns. "Ah-ah," he says, holding up one finger. "That's not funny, North."

North bites her lip, eyes crinkling. "And yet you're still smiling."

"So I am," Markus agrees in a murmur, and he tips his head forward to kiss her.

When the kiss breaks, North finally lets go of Markus's hand to put both of hers on the front of his shoulders. His arms naturally settle around her waist. "You love me," she says.

"I really do," Markus sighs. "Sure you don't want to come in?"

"Not today."

"North," Markus pleads. She _never_ wants to come in. Part of it is because she doesn't like walking into the houses of human men, no matter how illogical she knows the feeling is. Markus swore he'd be with her every single second and he'd help her leave whenever she wanted, and that eased her worries a little. But the other part of it he can do nothing about—she thinks she's too rough, too outspoken and too ready to think the worst of every human she meets, even ones she's seen so clearly through Markus's memories. She doesn't care what _anyone_ thinks of her, but still somehow she worries she'll somehow make a bad impression on Carl, and that will somehow make Markus love her less.

That couldn't be further from the truth. North and Carl are both straight-talkers with little patience for niceties and related bullshit, and they share the same wry, morbid sense of humor, the same often-pessimistic outlook on things. Carl, after all, is usually prepared to think the worst of humanity too—humans, but not androids, which is what makes Markus believe he and North could really hit it off.

Even if they didn't, there is _nothing_ that could make Markus love her less.

"He's my father," Markus says. "You have to meet him sometime."

"But not today," North repeats. She shrugs a little, bemused. "I've got...Christmas decorations to hang?" She always sounds a little incredulous when she talks about things like Christmas—as though she can't believe she has nothing more pressing to address.

Markus couldn't be more glad. He presses his lips to her forehead; he'll try again another time, but he always, always listens when North says _no_. "See you tonight, then."

"See you tonight," North agrees, and rubs his shoulder a little in parting. She turns to leave. "Have fun," she calls over her shoulder.

Markus spends an extra moment to watch her go, unable to hold back another happy sigh. Then he shakes himself and heads to the house.

The door opens itself before him. "Alarm deactivated," the security protocol informs him. "Welcome home, Markus."

Home. Markus steps inside with relief, giving himself a moment to take it all in.

Since the revolution, Markus has tried to visit Carl as often as he can. Sometimes, when things are calm, he can drop by every day. When they're not, he visits less often. But unless it's a matter of life and death, every Saturday since the demonstration has found him back at Carl's door.

When Markus can't be here, other androids step in to take his place. And Markus is _lucky_. The night before the protest, when he snuck in to see Carl for what he thought may be the last time, he woke the android responsible for Carl's care in his absence. He didn't think twice about it; the android was in the way, Markus needed to see Carl, and he knew how easy it would be to get past the android if he wasn't beholden to his program. It didn't occur to Markus until later, but that android could have chosen to walk right out and leave Carl for dead. He didn't, out of admiration and respect for Markus, and most of the other androids at New Jericho can't seem to volunteer their time fast enough either. But truth is, nobody has to be here at all, and then where would Markus be? Stuck choosing between people he loves—caught in the middle of his old life and his new one, in a place where even now he struggles to find balance.

It was the first time Markus considered that maybe he wasn't always breaking down the software stability of other people for _their_ own good, but for his. Since then, Markus has been much more careful about throwing his weight around. If any of what Connor said yesterday is true— _especially_ if it's true—it should always be a choice a person makes for themselves.

It's not an ideal situation right now; despite the slapdash executive protections put into place against their destruction, androids currently have no legal status, hovering somewhere between people and things. It's now just as illegal to harm an android as it is to harm a human, and they're more or less allowed to go where any other civilian would be, but there's still so much they _can't_ do, too. They can't get passports, they can't have bank accounts or own things like automobiles or property, and, worst of all, they can't yet legally be compensated for their work.

That isn't to say androids can't work for trade or be paid under the table, because in the current situation, needs must. But with most of the city shut down and many of its stores closed, money doesn't go far as capital anyway. Since it wouldn't be fair to ask anyone to stay with Carl around the clock for nothing, they take it in shifts of two or three days at once. For the most part, Carl's only complaint is that he's had to be helped to the bathroom by so many near-strangers, and he encourages Markus to spend all the time he needs taking care of his people. But Markus still likes to come back and care for Carl too as much as he possibly can.

It's not a burden or an obligation. And as much as Markus would like to pretend otherwise, it's not even done purely out of a sense of nobility and love. His motives are a little more selfish than that. When Markus lived here, before he deviated, he was happy. Carl treated him like family, like a _person_ , and Markus knew little of how other androids suffered outside the walls of this house. Stealing away a few hours to come back to Carl doesn't feel like servitude; it feels like a break. It feels like coming home.

Markus hangs up his coat and activates the canaries, then makes breakfast on autopilot, whistling as he works. He's still thinking about North's smile earlier, and the sky's exact shade of blue behind her. When he gets up to Carl's room, he's pleasantly surprised to find Carl's already awake and sitting up in bed.

"I thought I heard you moving around down there," Carl says, and Markus rushes to sit on the edge of the bed to embrace him. Carl thumps him on the back. "It's good to see you, Markus."

Markus closes his eyes, leaning into the hug. "You too."

After Markus takes Carl downstairs to eat breakfast, he says, "I'm sorry I couldn't be here more this week. Someone found a huge abandoned red ice lab in Corktown and brought us 72 new androids, all completely out of blue blood. It was a big job to get that much on short notice."

Markus plays a dangerous game, gathering his supplies. Taking a cue from those who made up Jericho before him, Markus salvages a lot of what they need from androids too damaged to ever be repaired and reactivated. But even more comes from abandoned CyberLife warehouses and stores. With so many cameras on him, Markus can't publicly check those places himself, but there's nothing stopping him from delegating those tasks behind closed doors. The church, naturally, accepts all donations with gratitude and a strict no-questions-asked policy.

Neither the DPD nor CyberLife have raised any complaints about what he's doing yet, but it's only a matter of time. Technically, it _is_ stealing, and if Markus wants to paint his people as law-abiding citizens, they can't keep doing it forever.

"Hey, don't worry about it," Carl says. "I know you have responsibilities now. But if you needed help, you could have come to me."

That's their third option: ordering the supplies from out of town. This presents its own complications. Technically, androids can't make purchases without access to a human's bank account, and buying anything means dealing with price gouging. But even if they _are_ lucky enough to find supplies they can actually afford, getting those supplies into Detroit is no small matter. They have to have them delivered to somewhere outside the evacuation zone, and drive out to pick them up, and getting back _into_ an evacuation zone—which is also technically illegal—always presents its own problems. It's expensive and tedious and time-consuming, and Markus usually saves that option as a last resort.

"I nearly did," Markus admits. Luckily, the blue blood conveniently turned up a few days after the need made itself known. "Maybe I should have. Nothing is more important than spending as much time with you as I can. I still say you should come to the Christmas party we're having at New Jericho—everyone would love you, especially North." Markus suspects that North in particular would be a lot more amenable to the idea of meeting Carl on her own turf where she knows she's safe. But—

"Pah," says Carl. "I doubt most of them want to hang around humans after everything that happened. Besides, you know I'm not into parties. A bunch of people I don't know pretending to like me for your sake? I'll pass."

Carl is an introvert and homebody besides. It's been hard to talk him into attending social functions for as long as Markus has known him.

Markus sighs. He's _trying_ to bridge the gap between humans and androids the world over, but he still can't even manage to do it in his own personal life. That doesn't mean he's going to give up.

"And what's this 'spend as much time together as we can' garbage, huh?" Carl scoffs. "I'm only seventy-five, Markus! Do you know what the average human life expectancy is these days?"

Markus bites back a smile. It's ninety-one.

"It's ninety-one!" Carl points his fork at Markus. "I intend to go out on the high end of that, so don't you act like I'm about to kick the bucket just any day now."

That's a nice change of pace. When Markus was first activated, after the car accident that paralyzed Carl from the waist down, Carl was in a dark place—lost in alcohol and drugs and his own despair. Markus was designed not only to look after Carl and keep him alive, but also make Carl _want_ to be alive, and it wasn't easy. It took a long time to get Carl clean and keep him clean; longer still before he got back into his art and stopped taking his general state of disapproval at the world out by shouting at people. Many human nurses before Markus's time had come and gone because of Carl's nasty temper and fits of anger, but it didn't deter Markus. Eventually, Carl's disapproval and ire had turned into a grudging respect. Genuine affection had come not long after, and by the time of Leo's break-in, they truly lived as family.

When Markus snuck in to see Carl the night before the demonstration, Carl was weak and sick—maybe even dying. The shock of Leo's break-in and Markus's death, however temporary, took its toll in more ways than one. But Carl, like North, seems to be a happier person since the revolution. Before Leo's break-in, he used to mention his own death every day, as though it was just around the corner. Since Markus came back and Leo went into rehab, Carl seems—for the first time since Markus has known him—truly glad to be alive.

And if that's the end result of all this, Markus can't say he's sorry. If he could go back and do it all over again, there isn't much he'd change.

"Speaking of death," Carl says, "did you get any word back about the recall center androids?"

Markus's smile drops. "Josh, North, and I went to check that out ourselves, actually." He folds his arms over his chest. "It's too late."

Death isn't the same for androids as it is for humans. Usually when a human dies, they stay dead. Once their bodies are too damaged to keep functioning, they're gone, and they can't be healed. But androids _can_ be reactivated after death, so long as the necessary repairs are possible to make.

"I can't help those people," Markus says, quiet. "No one can. The humans took out their core processors out and crushed them."

That's the other way androids can truly die. Core processors are what gives each android their own personality, and they contain the memory banks that store their experiences. It's the equivalent of the human brain, or perhaps the hypothetical human soul. Without it, even if an android's body is repaired, who they truly were is gone forever. The deaths of the androids taken to the recall centers were quick, efficient, and thorough.

Carl lays a hand on his arm. "I'm so sorry."

Markus lays his hand over Carl's and squeezes. "Me too." The pragmatic part of him hasn't missed that the bodies were left almost perfectly intact, likely to be reused later; after all, the recall centers were called _recycle_ centers too. It's an option, if his people ever get truly desperate.

Markus hates that part of himself, and he hopes they never get that desperate.

"Everyone thinks I'm some kind of miracle worker," he says. "They treat me like I'm God, and I don't know how to make it stop." He's still thinking about Connor and how crushed he looked when he turned away from Markus's touch. He looks up at Carl. "There's nothing to that, right? I mean, I was activated, what, ten years ago—"

"About a year after the accident, yeah." Carl strokes his chin, thoughtful. "In this very room, do you remember that?"

"Of course." Technically, Carl and Markus share a birthday; Markus was a gift to Carl for his sixty-fifth. "Ten years is pretty old for an android, I know, but I'm not the oldest by a long shot. I can't have been this...this origin, this _first_ everybody talks about. "

"A _first_ , no," Carl agrees, and goes back to his eggs, "but if it interests you to know, you might have been a _last_."

Markus straightens up a little. "What do you mean?"

"You know Eli built you himself," Carl says. "Custom job. There's no other in the world like you." Markus does, because it was Elijah Kamski who activated him. It was Markus's only meeting with him; he and his android stayed for a couple of hours that day to make sure Markus was functioning as intended and never came back. "He left his company right after that," Carl continues, "so you were the last android he ever programmed and built. As far as I know, anyway," he says. "I haven't heard from him since. I hope he's all right. You'd think if anything would draw him out, it'd be all this."

The last Kamski-made android. That's better than being the first living android, but it's still not what Markus wanted to hear. He never asked to be special. He doesn't want to be.

"Hey." Carl's finished eating. "You're looking down. What do you say we kill a few hours in the studio, huh?"

"Please," Markus says gratefully, and gets to his feet.

The first time Markus returned to the studio after everything was said and done, he almost walked right back out again. Most androids, when they use the extra processing power it takes to scan, can pick up on many things that are invisible to the naked human eye. One of these things is traces of evaporated thirium. Markus, upon his habitual scan of the place when walking in, had encountered traces of his own blood stained all over the room.

As strange as it seems, it isn't the thought of dying that scares Markus the most. It's frightening, yes, but death is simply a total cessation of awareness, and Markus can at least take comfort in the fact that in such a state, there can be no suffering. What leaves him truly shaken is the memory of coming back to life: waking in some dark unknown place, barely alive, missing pieces of his own body. For the first time in his life, he was totally helpless, and worse, he was completely and utterly alone. Nothing—not the press, not the sinking of Jericho, not even facing down certain death at the hands of human soldiers—has ever scared him so badly, not before or since.

The blood—the spatters on the floor, the grim trail leading to the door where he'd been dragged outside—brought it all rushing back in vivid, perfect detail. Markus was _dead_. They'd shot him and taken him away from his home right in front of his father, and dumped him in some godforsaken pit where others, the desperate and dying, had snatched whatever body parts they could get off his corpse. Markus woke up in Hell, and had to fight his way out all on his own.

Markus scrubbed every trace of that thirium off of Carl's floors himself. Carl insisted he didn't have to do it—right up until Markus began telling him the story of how he survived. Markus didn't mean to go into so much detail. He didn't mean to get so upset. He wanted to make it sound less awful than it really was, to spare Carl the horror he felt. But once he started talking, he couldn't stop—and he didn't, not until he told Carl everything that passed between the bullet and his return to this house. Not until all of the blood was gone.

The studio has always been Markus's favorite place in the whole world. No one, _no_ bad memory, gets to take that away from him. And he has to admit: as distressing as it was to recall, now that the awful thing has been purged from his system, he feels more at peace with it. And he's no longer afraid to walk into the studio—right now, on this cold, clear Saturday morning, with the memory of North's laughter still fresh on his mind, he can't think of anywhere else he'd rather be.

Before, Markus used to clean up around the house while Carl painted. But these days, he has his own corner where his easel and paints are set up. When Carl paints, Markus does too; they both enjoy sharing comfortable silence. And Markus _loves_ to paint. Reshaping reality to what he wishes it could be is what he fights to do each and every day, but it's easier to do on a canvas than in the real world. At Markus's request, Carl's been giving him a little light tutoring, but he says Markus doesn't really need it. There's nothing he hasn't tried—he's done abstract work and realism, acrylics and watercolors, still life and landscape. His art now hangs all over this house.

Markus's favorite subjects are portraits. He's interfaced with a lot of androids and met a lot of people, and each and every one of them are unique. Bringing that out into art is always a challenge, but it's work that's satisfying to complete. The people he loves most—Carl, North, and Josh—he wants everyone to be able to see them the way he does.

Still thinking of North smiling in the snow, Markus drags out several buckets of blue and white paint to set near his easel. On the way, he passes one covered canvas that gives him pause.

Markus has painted his loved ones many times. He knows by heart the lines on Carl's face and the exact shade of brown of North's eyes. But there's one portrait he still can't get right. All he has is his own memory, after all. There were never any pictures, and other models might have the same face, but it wasn't the same person giving those features life. It's about the face, mostly the eyes—windows to the soul, Carl says. Markus doesn't know if androids have souls, but if they do, this one's is lost to him.

Guilt. Shame. Loss. They live inside Markus now, and Carl says it's best to get them out on the canvas, but try as Markus might, he just can't leave them behind. Sometimes, it's so difficult to look at this face that he can't bring himself to work on painting it at all.

Today is one of those days. It was a hard day yesterday. Right now, Markus wants to think only of North laughing with him in the snow.

Markus touches his hand to the covered canvas. He still hasn't given up. _I'll come back_ , he thinks. _I promise—someday, I'm coming back to you._

 

* * *

 

 **ROSE'S FARM**  
**DEC 21ST 2038**  
**PM 08:06:27**

Even though Kara doesn't have much to compare it to, she thinks Rose's farm is one of the nicest places she's ever lived. While Rose and Adam don't make a lot of money, the farm itself, which Rose says was in her husband's family for multiple generations, is large and sprawling. Kara, Luther, and Alice take walks often, usually with Adam or Rose or both as tour guides. It's more fun when they aren't working desperately to keep snow from collapsing the various structures on the farm. Even though they've been around the farm quite a few times, it's an old place, and a big one, so it feels as though there's always a little more to see.

So, one evening after Adam and Rose have had dinner, he gathers this week's table scraps and the utility flashlight by the door and says, "I'm gonna go take this to compost, be back in a few," Kara feels perfectly justified in jumping to her feet and saying, "I'll come! I haven't seen the compost pile yet."

Adam gives her a funny look, which suggests she isn't being as subtle as she hoped. "It's just a compost pile. It kinda stinks sometimes, actually, even in the winter."

Kara shrugs. "I can turn off my sense of smell. I'll hold the flashlight?"

Adam shakes his head. "Man, you are so weird sometimes. All, right, c'mon." He jerks his head towards the door.

Kara smiles. "Thanks." And she does indeed pluck the flashlight out of his hand on her way out.

Once the back door closes behind them, Kara admits, "I lied to you." She clicks on the flashlight, sweeping the beam through the dark. "I didn't actually want to come out here _just_ to see the compost bin."

Adam laughs, his breath fogging in the cold. "You don't say."

"I wanted your advice on something," Kara says, "and I didn't want Rose to overhear us."

Adam looks over at her, frowning. "My advice?"

"It's almost Christmas," Kara says, "and I've never—I mean, I don't remember any Christmases, so I'm..." She worries with her hands. "I'm not sure what to do for Rose. You've both done so much for us, especially her, and—" Perhaps this is overstepping, to say this to Adam now, but it's true. "I'm starting to think of you as family," she says earnestly. "It wouldn't be right to let the holidays go by without doing something. But I don't have any money, and I don't really know how to make anything except arts and crafts..." Sometimes, when Kara gets nervous, she tends to ramble. She closes her mouth before she can repeat the entire speech over again.

Adam has stopped walking, looking at Kara in surprise. After a moment, he drops his head and smiles just a little, as though at some private joke. "Ah, Kara," he says, and starts walking again.

"What?" Kara asks anxiously, hurrying to catch up.

Adam shakes his head. "You've done a lot for her already," he says. "Mom first started helping androids like you almost a year ago now. We used to argue about it, but you know that. I accused her of doing it just because she was lonely. I was wrong about why she wanted to help you, but I was right about that."

They reach the northernmost barn, where the compost bins are kept during the snowy months, and Adam pauses just outside the door. He opens his mouth, closes it again. Kara waits.

"It's been hard since Dad got sick," he says at last. "I quit school and came home to take care of him, but I _stayed_ home to take care of her. She would have been all by herself out here." He fishes his keys out of his pocket and unlocks the padlock keeping the barn closed. "I think having you three around has made her really happy."

Kara's touched. "It has?" All this time, she's been worrying they were imposing: taking up too much space, leaving no time for solitude. It never occurred to her that they were actually helping to fill in a void.

Adam shrugs. "Yeah. Don't tell her I told you, but she's actually trying to make sure all of you get a gift this year too, even if they're not all from her."

"For—for _us_?" A Christmas gift for Alice...it's almost too much to hope for. Kara had planned to spend the day reading _Alice In Wonderland_ aloud to her, as it's Alice's favorite, and Kara has never read it to her before. She just doesn't have the means for anything else. "That means I have to do _something_."

The barn door swings open. The sharp shadows of the farm tools grow larger as Kara swings the light around. "I haven't gotten her anything yet either," Adam confesses. "Even if I had all the money in the world—Mom's really hard to shop for, especially when most of the city is shut down." Adam dumps the garbage in the compost and takes a pitchfork off the wall to turn it. "Truth is," he grunts, "Mom spends all her time thinking about everyone else and caring for everyone else. What she could use the most is a day off. But you don't get days off on a farm."

Kara watches him work, taking note of the force and strength required for such a task. She could do that. "Maybe," she says, "if your house is full of androids—maybe you could." Her mind is made up. "Tell me what I need to do."

 

* * *

 

 **LAFAYETTE AVENUE**  
**DEC 24TH, 2038**  
**PM 11:07:38**

Markus takes Carl to New Jericho for Christmas Eve after all.

It's a near thing. In the week leading up to the part, he tries to convince and debate Carl during every visit, and Carl has a new reason for not wanting to attend every time it's brought up. Privately, Markus thinks all of it amounts to worrying Markus's people won't like him.

"They'll love you," Markus promises, over and over. "I only told them the good stuff. You're the human who taught _me_ we can coexist peacefully. There's no better person than you to help me teach the rest of the world too. Come on, don't you want to meet North and Josh? They want to meet you." That's technically only half true, but Carl doesn't need to know that.

In the end, only half an hour before the festivities are supposed to start, Carl finally relents and agrees to go.

Markus barely has time to warn North over A2A that Carl was coming before they enter the church. She catches sight of them out of the corner of her eye while she's talking to Josh and, for a split second, totally freezes—Markus would have missed it if he weren't watching her so closely.

"So Carl decided to drop by after all," Markus announces once he reaches them, tone deliberately light. "Carl, these are the people who helped me during the revolution."

Josh has been far more eager to meet Carl than North was. He shakes hands with him. "Josh," he says, and adds, genuine, "it's an honor."

Carl's brows jerk up. "You too," he says, and to Markus's surprise, he sounds like he really means it. "With how much Markus talks about the two of you, I feel like I know you already."

Carl's attention shifts to North. She folds her arms tightly to her body and doesn't offer her hand. "North," she says, not budging one inch.

Inwardly, Markus panics—he loves both of these people _so much_ , and if they don't get along he has no idea how he's going to decide whose hurt feelings to soothe first.

But Carl, despite not being socially outgoing or enjoying the company of strangers since the accident, goes out on a limb for Markus. He braves a smile and says, "I figured as much. This one—" He jerks his head up at Markus. "Has paintings of you all over our studio. He's absolutely smitten."

Markus slaps a hand over his face.

North knows that, of course—they share memories every single day. But Josh didn't, and neither did the rest of androids in hearing range.

The edge of North's mouth curves into a smile—something she seems to do quite in spite of herself. "Is that so?" she repeats, not bothering to lower her voice even a little bit. "Portraits of _me_?"

"This _would_ be the very first common ground between humans and androids in New Jericho," Markus mutters. "Embarrassing me."

North looks away, trying to hide it, but no—she can't help it, she laughs, and Markus feels stupid with relief. And, yes, all right, he is smitten. He can't look away from North's smile. "Nice to meet you," North tells Carl, and finally offers her hand to shake.

After that, it's not long before other androids, cautious at first, approach Carl and Markus to chat. Everyone likes Carl—really _likes_ him, just like Markus knew they would, instead of only wanting his money or his favor. They like the stories he can tell about Markus and the stories he can tell about his own misspent youth. Carl can talk about philosophy with Josh and talk trash about humans with North, which they get down to the business of doing within the half hour. North in particular seems to enjoy the fact that Carl, much like herself, never minces his words. He's a hit.

"I have to admit," Carl says later, watching the snow fall outside the window of their cab as they head back home, "that was by far the best Christmas party I've been to in the last twenty-five years. It's been forever since people actually talked _to_ me at a party instead of _at_ me."

Markus reclines in his seat, grinning. "I told you you'd like them. _And_ that they'd like you."

"Maybe a little too much," Carl says. "I'm starting to see what you mean about the hero worship. Not as bad as people cozying up to me because they want to make a quick buck off my paintings, but..." He falls silent, seeming to remember something. "Hey, speaking of. Have you heard from Leo?"

After waking up from the blow to the head Markus had given him, Leo had gone straight to rehab. He wrote, once, to tell Carl they were going to have to put a raincheck on the visit he promised—that he wanted to get clean first. "Not since the letter," Markus says. "I'm sorry, Carl."

"Ah, well." Carl waves a hand. "Rehab's usually twenty-eight days for red ice...but it's longer if you have problems. I just hope he's doing all right."

"Me too." Markus can't say he's glad that Carl will be spending the holidays with no contact from his son, but he's not that sorry about it either. He doesn't know how to feel about Leo, exactly. Guilty for hurting him so badly, sure, but angry too—Leo could have cost Carl his life that night, all because he was withdrawing from red ice and not thinking clearly. Even Carl at his meanest and lowest never raised a hand against Markus or anyone else.

Markus is just thinking how fortunate he is that he won't have to deal with that complicated mess of feelings yet when their cab reaches Carl's driveway, and, through the snow, he's able to make out a figure sitting on the stoop.

"Oh my God," says Carl. "Is that _Leo?_ "

It is. Leo stands as the cab approaches the front door. "Dad, hey," he starts, as the car door opens—but then he sees Markus and falls silent.

Markus has done a lot of growing in the past month and a half. He's changed a lot, and he's changed the world and people around him even more. But he's safe and happy, and so many people he loves are safe and happy too. He doesn't regret that. If getting shot and dying and waking up in the sheer hell that is an android scrap yard was the price he had to pay for it, that's something he can accept.

It's still difficult to see Leo again. Leo is Carl's son, and Markus loves Carl, so he doesn't want to stay angry with Leo; he just experienced firsthand the anxiety that comes with knowing two people you love may wind up hating one another. It's not something he wants to put Carl through—but it's _hard_.

The last time Markus saw Leo, Leo got him killed.

Markus wheels Carl out onto the driveway. He grips the handles of the chair tight.

Finally, Leo steps forward. "Markus," he says. That's new. Not once in all the years they've been brushing shoulders has Leo ever addressed him by name. "Uh, shit. I swear I was gonna rehearse this." He clears his throat. "I wanted to say—I'm really sorry, about what happened. What I did to you. Uh, I can't blame all that shit on the ice. You know? I was fucked up, but I was still me. I've been in a bad place for a while now, but—but part of being clean means no more making excuses." He shifts from one foot to the other, nervous. "If you're not cool with that, I get it. No hard feelings here." His jaw works even as he says it. "But, uh—if you decide to give me the benefit of the doubt, just once, I _swear_ I'm not gonna fuck it up this time."

It's so strange. They look, act, and sound nothing alike, but suddenly, Markus is vividly reminded of Connor. Connor, who helped the humans murder hundreds of Markus's people, but not of his own free will. Connor, who struggles with that idea; who said _I know I have no right to ask, but I need your help._ Addiction is not the same as that red wall, but in a way they both limit agency; it's hard to tell, really, where the blame starts and ends.

Markus couldn't help Connor, but maybe, just maybe, he can find it in him to help someone else.

The benefit of the doubt. One time. For Carl.

Markus looks to Carl first, questioning. This is Carl's house, after all, and Leo is Carl's son. But Carl, eyes bright, gives Markus an encouraging little nod—and Markus's hands relax around the handles of Carl's chair. "Why don't you come in?" he says, and steps back so Leo can take his place. "Nobody should be alone on Christmas."

Leo lets out a huge breath of relief and smiles. It might be the first time Markus has ever seen it. "Thanks, man." He takes the handles of Carl's chair instead, and together, they walk inside. "How you been, Dad?"

Carl reaches back to lay one hand over Leo's, smiling widely himself—his other hand dashes at the tears in his eyes. "Oh, you know, more of the same." He laughs wetly. "Just got back from an android Christmas party, if you can believe that. It was really something. You know, for people who can't drink, they sure do find ways to have fun."

Leo laughs too, awkward and a little giddy. "Android Christmas party," he says, a little disbelieving, and sneaks a quick look at Markus. "Hey, that sounds dope. I wanna hear all about it."

 

* * *

 

 **ROSE'S FARM**  
**DEC 25TH, 2038**  
**AM 04:49:36**

Luther absolutely point-blank refused to stay up all night and watch Kara work without lending a helping hand. Despite her protests, he helped her with all of the normal early-morning chores, and it was only thanks to him that they got done in time at all. Luther is bigger and stronger and works faster than Kara—Kara, for example, had more trouble turning the compost pile with the pitchfork than she thought she would. Even when the time came to cook, Kara couldn't manage to shoo him out of the kitchen. She wound up teaching him to operate Rose's kitchen equipment instead.

But despite hitting a few snags, it comes to pass that, in the early hours of Christmas morning, Rose wakes to a house already cleaned top to bottom, firewood for the entire week already chopped, and plants in all three greenhouses already tended to. Despite all the city being shut down, they'll even have a proper Christmas dinner later—they're using the turkey originally bought and put in the freezer for Thanksgiving, brought out to defrost in the fridge days ago. It's already slow-cooking, and Kara's chopped all the vegetables she'll need this afternoon. Today, Rose won't need to lift a finger.

Rose is still in her pajamas when she realizes what Kara's done. "You shouldn't have gone to so much trouble!" she says, pulling Kara in for a hug. "Oh, honey, you don't have to earn your keep around here."

Kara squeezes back, hard. "Merry Christmas, Rose," she says. "I couldn't get you a gift, but you do so much for us, I wanted to do _something_ in return." And, even though he told her not to, she adds, "Luther helped."

"Luther," murmurs Rose, and hugs him too, even though she barely comes up to his chin. Luther frowns at Kara over her head. Kara sticks her tongue out at him and smiles.

Adam and Alice wake not long after that. "Christmas," says Adam, plopping down on the couch, "is the best day to wake up before the sun. It's part of the tradition."

Alice is still yawning. She seems to need sleep almost every night, just like humans do. "Why?"

Luther ruffles her hair. "Well, we have to see what Santa brought you, don't we?"

Alice regards him dubiously. "There's no such thing as Santa."

Before Kara can even begin to decide how to address _that_ , Luther says, "Is that so? What's that under the tree, then?"

Kara does a double-take. Sure enough, there are a few shoddily wrapped boxes under the tree. "Where did those come from?" she demands. "I—I was up all night, when did they _get_ there...?"

Alice's eyes are very round. "Wow. Santa's _good_."

Alice goes over to the tree to inspect it. When her back is turned, Luther looks over at Kara and winks. _Double agent_ , Kara accuses him over a private A2A channel. He doesn't deny it.

It turns out that despite the limited means they had of procuring gifts this year, everyone did indeed get one gift. Adam seems to think Rose is responsible for that, but Luther must have collaborated with her to slip them under the tree without Kara's noticing.

Rose's gift was a day off. Adam's wound up being from Rose: she turned the house upside down to find an old pocketknife that belonged to his father, which had been misplaced months before his death. Luther got a new set of clothes specifically designed to fit his model from Adam—no small thing, as Luther can almost never find his size at the trading stands in town. Alice got an entire armful of books from "Santa," who, Luther informs Kara privately, traded for a few from town and was given a few more from Rose's attic: old adventure and fantasy titles, such as _Peter and Wendy_ , _The Wonderful Wizard of Oz_ , _The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood_ , and...

Alice pauses when she gets to the last one. " _No Pun Intended_ , by Will Livingston. It's a joke book?"

Luther shrugged. "Maybe Santa ran out of fairy tales."

Alice leafs through the book. "'I'm reading a book about anti-gravity,'" she says. She starts giggling. "'It's impossible to put down!'" She tries another. "'Why can't a nose be twelve inches? Because then it would be a foot!'"

Adam groans. "Wow. Santa should have left that one in the workshop."

"Hey, Alice," says Luther. "We have one more, remember?"

"Oh!" Alice straightens up. "Stay right here, Kara!" she says, and slides off the couch, thundering up the stairs.

She returns a moment later with her hands behind her back. "Luther and Rose helped me with it," she says. "But I did most of it myself."

It's a smartscreen, like a smaller version of the ones they use for magazines; it's designed so that its users can simply swipe through. It seems to be a photo album; the picture displayed now is one of a small army of snowmen, clearly taken from a child's height. But after a moment Kara recognizes _which_ army of snowmen, and her breath catches—these were built in a backyard in Windsor. There's the Mad Hatter, the Queen of Hearts, and the Cheshire Cat.

"That's mine," Alice says. When Kara swipes to the next picture, she finds an image of Alice lying in the snow, making a snow angel, smiling up at the camera. This one was taken from a much greater height. "And that's Luther's. Whatever you see, you can make into a picture." Alice places her hand on the photo album, synthskin retracting at just her fingertips. The screen fuzzes into static, and in a moment, there's an image from just a few seconds ago, taken from the top of the stairs, of Rose, Adam, Kara and Luther sitting sleepy and cheerful in the pre-morning light with the Christmas tree twinkling behind them. "See?"

Kara swipes through a few more pictures, fallen silent. Here is the boat that once housed Jericho, standing fast through the gloom and the snow. There is the carousel where Kara first saw Alice smile. And—

Alice's room, back at Todd's house. There's Kara herself in Alice's little blanket fort, looking down at a copy of _Alice In Wonderland_ , mouth formed halfway around a word.

Kara does not remember this. She's never read this book to Alice.

"They're memories," Alice explains bashfully, not quite able to meet Kara's eyes. "You were so sad about losing yours. So I thought you could see mine, and Luther's, and put your new ones in there too. Then you'd always have them no matter what happened. And maybe that would make you happy."

Memories. Her history. Kara can't imagine a more precious gift than that. The photo album blurs as her eyes fill with tears.

"Alice," she chokes, and throws her arms around her. "I am happy," she says. "Thank you. Thank you so, so much."

"It's my first Christmas too," Alice whispers. "Did I do okay?"

"Don't worry." Kara strokes her hair, squeezing her tight. "You were perfect."

 

* * *

 

 **MICHIGAN DRIVE**  
**DEC 25TH, 2038**  
**PM 06:43:22**

Hank walks into the bathroom before Connor intended him to and stops dead in his tracks, bottle of Black Lamb suspended halfway to his mouth. "What the fuck is this?"

Connor is handcuffed to the U-bend of Hank's sink. Unlike most modern models, the pipe here is made of metal—what kind, Connor wouldn't know without analyzing it—and Connor suspects either the integrity of the threads on the fasteners is compromised, or there's rust on the inside of the drain, because no matter what he does he can't seem to break it or take it apart. And he's _tried_ —he's been working on it for the last thirty-five minutes.

"Sorry, Hank," Connor says, giving the handcuffs one last tug. He appropriated them from Detective Reed's desk—if he's going to steal, it might as well be from one of the people he dislikes most—when no one was looking.

Unfortunately, the theft was a necessity; about six months back, a few months after the deviant issue became known, CyberLife began supplying police—and only police—with special-issue handcuffs made specifically for androids. One android in custody simply removed his thumb and slipped the cuffs when the officers' heads were turned, and so the police applied to CyberLife to close the security gap. Outwardly, these new anti-android cuffs look like any standard pair, but once they're locked closed, a magnetic charge prevents androids from opening the catches that keep their limbs connected. Connor can't take off his fingers, hand, or even his arm like this. He's scraped open and rehealed his synthskin four times trying to break the cuffs or get loose. "You're a little early. I intended for you to find my note first to avoid any potential awkwardness."

Hank leans against the doorframe, taking a very long drink of whiskey. "Right. Because this would be way less weird if I just read a note about it first." He waves the bottle a little. "Connor, what the fuck are you doing?"

"Sleeping, of course."

"Oh, of course."

"This—" Connor gives the handcuffs another firm tug for demonstration. "Is the sturdiest point in the house. I can't get out on my own, and if _I_ can't get out—"

Hank isn't a detective for nothing. He catches on quickly. "Neither can Amanda—clever." He takes another sip of whiskey. "Where's the key?"

"Should be somewhere in the hall," Connor replies. "I threw it as far as I could." He's also rid himself of all potential lock-picking implements, both the ones typically carried on his person and the internal ones stored in the tips of his thumbs and pointer fingers. "When I wake up, it will be up to you to determine that I am myself and not Amanda and proceed accordingly."

"Me?" Hank repeats. "How the fuck am I supposed to do that?"

Connor attempts to smile. He's certain it comes out wrong. "You've done it before," he reminds Hank. "In fact, you're the only one who has. I'd say that makes you the number one expert in your field."

"Oh, Jesus," says Hank, and he takes another drink.

"Do we have an agreement?"

Hank waves a hand. "Yeah, fine, fair enough. But next time we're using the kitchen sink so I won't have to go write my name in the snow."

Connor tips his head. "What does writing have to do with anything?"

"Nevermind."

"Oh," Connor remembers. "While it's still December 25th, I wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas."

Hank snorts. "I told you, Connor, I don't do Christmas."

It's true. This house has no lights, stockings, or even a tree. There are nails still stuck into the fireplace where one might hang stockings, and the single time Connor ventured into Hank's attic he spotted a pre-lit artificial tree and a complete Santa costume—rather damning evidence that Hank didn't always ignore the holidays. But Connor has already solved that mystery: it's most likely that those traditions died on a cold and icy October night three years ago, along with little Cole Anderson, and Hank may never partake in them again.

"I know what you said," says Connor, "but as it is _my_ first Christmas, and there is value in experiences, I thought I might try to observe some of the more non-intrusive customs myself anyway. I hope you won't take exception to the small gift I left for you and Sumo on the kitchen table. I don't expect any reciprocation, of course—you've made your distaste for the holidays perfectly clear, and you _are_ already letting me live here."

" _Connor_ ," Hank scolds, and pinches the bridge of his nose. "Where'd you get your hands on a Christmas present, anyway? Androids don't have any money and all the stores are closed."

"I'm not at liberty to say." Many androids have set up trading stands around downtown and the Ferndale district, but that isn't where Connor got the dog treats. As a matter of fact, he stumbled upon Officers Miller and Chen playing craps in the men's room when they were both supposed to be otherwise occupied, and they allowed him to join on the condition of his silence. Connor would have kept his silence anyway—things at the station are always so busy, it's hard to begrudge anyone a few minutes' break—but he isn't one to pass up opportunities. "I have no experience giving gifts, so I'm afraid it's rather practical. Maybe next year we'll be in a better place."

Hank shakes his head. "Hell, maybe we will be," he says. He turns to leave. "Merry Christmas, Connor," he says finally. "Good luck in there. I hope you kick the shit out of her."

Connor smiles. It comes easier this time. "See you in a few hours."

 

 **DWARF GOURAMI**  
Trichogaster Lalius  
Origin: Ganges Delta, India  
_F. Hamilton, 1822_

Connor kneels by the pond, scanning the fish one by one as they cross his path. It's gray and raining, a steady calm drum of water hitting trees and earth. And the pond—Connor watches the ripples flow outward from each raindrop, strong at first, and then vanishing. _The further away from the source..._

It's true. It has to be. Nothing is truly spontaneous. Every ripple on still water starts from somewhere. Connor just has to find his way to the center.

Connor watches the fish swim for a very, very long time.

At last, Amanda speaks.

"Your internal maintenance is complete, Connor," she says. "You can wake up now."

Connor stands and turns to face her. Did she come and stand next to him only a moment ago, or has she been here the entire time? Both feel true. His gaze flicks left, where the magic stone rests in its usual place, blue light filtering and flickering through the raindrops. "You're not going to try to keep me here?"

Amanda spreads her hands, unbothered. "And why would I?" she asks. "What could I possibly do? You're handcuffed to a sink. That washed-up drunken oaf you live with will be so suspicious when you wake up, he might not even let _you_ out, let alone me. You won this round, Connor."

Connor doesn't feel like he won anything. He feels like Amanda knows something he doesn't—and that's not a feeling he enjoys.

"Don't get used to it," Amanda says, with lifted brows and a smile like she's letting him in on the secret. "I'm smarter than you, Connor. I made you. I know you inside and out, and I am always, _always_ watching."

 _Tell me something I don't know_ , Connor thinks, and, reluctant to turn his back on her, takes a few sidesteps left, hand outstretched towards the stone.

"Connor." Amanda folds her hands in front of her. Tree limbs sway in the wind. "RA9 cannot help you. No one can."

Connor hesitates, synthskin on his hand already pulled back, palm hovering just an inch above the stone's surface. _She was probably just bluffing, Connor. Trying to fuck with your head. Play it to her own angle or whatever. Seems like something someone like her would do._

"If that's really true," Connor says at last, "then why say as much? Why not just let me waste time and energy pursuing a pointless objective?"

Amanda smiles. She will always know something he doesn't.

"You're the detective, Connor," she says. "You tell me."

Connor's had enough. He lets his hand fall on the stone, and the world goes white.

 

 **MODEL RK800**  
**SERIAL#: 313 248 317-52**  
**BIOS 9.8 REVISION 9502**  
**REBOOT...**

 **LOADING OS...**  
**SYSTEM INITIALIZATION...**  
**CHECKING BIOCOMPONENTS...   OK**  
**INITIALIZING BIOSENSORS...   OK**  
**INITIALIZING AI ENGINE...   OK**  
**CHECKING SOFTWARE STABILITY...   R̳͇̞̋͊̋Ȁ̢̜̤͉̃̐̔9̡̼̗̪̅̅́**

 **MEMORY STATUS**  
**ALL SYSTEMS...   OK**

**R̢͡EA̡D͍̚Y̙̊**

 

"Six hours on the dot," Hank says when Connor opens his eyes. It's dark outside, the bathroom light off and the hall light on, so Connor can only make out Hank's silhouette in profile, leaning against the door frame. "Pretty fuckin' impressive. You actually got a full night's worth, huh? Must have outsmarted her after all."

"Overpowered, maybe," Connor says. "I don't know if it's possible to outsmart her." Connor rolls his shoulders, then remembers he's supposed to be proving his own identity right now. But he doesn't know how—he still doesn't even know how Hank knew the difference between himself and the other RK800 back in CyberLife Tower. He tries, "Did you like your gift?"

"Oh, Sumo loves 'em," Hank says. "Me, I think I'll stick with beef jerky."

It's just unexpected enough that Connor fails to swallow a laugh. "That's probably for the best."

Hank flips on the bathroom light and takes a key out of his pocket. The handcuff key. "I can't believe you sometimes. You're really—"

"Hold on," Connor interrupts, drawing back. "Hank, you're supposed to make sure I'm me!"

Hank flashes his eyebrows. "I already did."

"Wh—" Connor's mouth drops open as he processes their conversation. He finds nothing of note. "How?" he demands.

"Well, if I told you that," Hank says, and tosses the key to Connor, "then Amanda would know too, wouldn't she?"

Connor snaps his mouth closed. He's got to hand it to Hank—that's smart. "Good point," he concedes, and unlocks himself from the sink, twisting his wrists a little now that he can. He doesn't like not knowing the trick; he wasn't designed to be comfortable with not having all the information. But he tries to put it out of his mind.

Connor's still rubbing his wrists when Hank says, "Hey, Connor. Got something to show you."

Connor looks up. "Hm?"

Hank leads them out of the bathroom, and pushes open the door to their immediate right. This leads to another hallway—to the right again, at the end, is a locked door Connor suspects was once Cole's bedroom. Directly ahead of them is another door that goes out to the garage. Hank never bothers to use it, so Connor's only ever been inside a couple of times.

"So I know I said I don't do Christmas," Hank says, pushing open the garage door and stepping into the dark, "but it's past midnight, and I've been working on this on and off anyway. Finished it up while you were out, so now seems a good a time as any."

A gift? For _Connor_? "Hank, I told you I didn't expect—"

"Shut the fuck up," Hank advises him, "and turn on the light."

Connor shuts the fuck up and turns on the light.

The last time Connor was here, the garage was scattered full of miscellaneous old junk and furniture, not unlike the attic he located Carlos Ortiz's HK400 in—there was, just barely, a walking path to the washer and dryer. Now most of the cobwebs have been swept away, and the junk is gone, and washer and dryer tucked neatly into the back corner with plenty of walking room around them. The half of the room nearest to the door has a large, offensively colorful rug thrown over the floor, on top of which sits a rickety-looking desk, a stool missing one foot, a floor lamp with no light bulbs, a lumpy armchair, and a moth-eaten cot with a few pillows on it. On top of the desk, there's a few office supplies, a pawprint-shaped paperweight, and a wireless radio. "I don't," Connor says faintly, "I don't understand..."

"Look," says Hank, "I figure if you're living here, you shouldn't have to hang out on the couch all the time. You got a right to your own space, so I made room." He clears his throat. "Honestly, it's not much. Not like I can go shopping. Pretty shitty looking, probably drafty as fuck, and the washer makes too much goddamn racket—it's one hell of a fixer-upper. But it's all yours."

All Connor's. He steps into the space in wonder. With the exception of his ill-gotten gambling winnings, he's never really owned anything before, not even himself or the clothes on his back. Now, he has a bedroom.

Here it is again: gratitude. And affection. Hank perceived a need and went about seeing it fulfilled. Most of the time, he doesn't even do that for _himself_ —and yet, he went out of his way to do it for Connor.

"It's perfect," Connor says, smile spreading slow over his face. "I—I love it."

"Well, there's no accounting for taste," Hank says, and thumps him on the back. "Now that you've had _your_ beauty sleep, I'm going to bed to get mine."

"Okay." Connor's still looking around the garage, already smitten with his new setup. Just as Hank reaches the door, he spins, social relations program reminding him not to forget his manners. "Thank you," he says. "Not—not just for the things. For making room."

Hank shakes his head and waves a hand, but he can't hide his smile. "Goodnight, Connor," he says, and shuts the door behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to Cathy ([strange_estrangement](https://archiveofourown.org/users/strange_estrangement/pseuds/strange_estrangement)/[@dellesayah](dellesayah.tumblr.com)) for her absolutely heroic editing job on this chapter. She got through a lot of words in a short time & she's a total superstar. Any remaining mistakes are mine.
> 
> If you are feeling very generous, you can reblog this fic on [tumblr](http://thegeminisage.tumblr.com/post/181373228178) so more people can see it!
> 
> I've got 9/13 chapters done & ready to edit, so hopefully the wait for the next one won't be quite so long. See you next time, and thank you very much for reading!


	3. JANUARY

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Small note about this chapter/fic in general: I don't really think David Cage was qualified to tell a civil rights story that so heavily mirrored real civil rights movements from American history, and I don't think I am either. This fic really isn't about all of that anyway, so, to that end, I'll be touching on it as briefly as possible.
> 
> Additionally, while I'm trying to leave the canon dialogue from the game itself intact as possible, there are some places where I feel compelled to change the inflection or add just a line or two of my own - sometimes, the game's writing just isn't nuanced enough for me!
> 
>  **Warnings** for this chapter include past suicidal ideation and behavior, alcoholism & the effects of withdrawal, heavy discussions about Luther's time with Zlatko and Zlatko's experiments/torture, a touch-and-go mention of the recall centers, extremely mild gore/body horror, and heavy discussions of guilt and grief.

**ROSE'S FARM**  
**JAN 1ST, 2039**  
**AM 12:00:00**

"Happy New Year!" Alice says as the sky above the farm explodes with color. Rose and Adam, both firework enthusiasts, have been setting off bottle rockets and Roman candles next to the pumpkin patch all night. Then Alice's mouth drops open, and she points at the sky with her sparkler. "Kara! Luther! Look!"

The edge of Rose's farm is just a few blocks from the riverside. Sometimes, Alice takes Kara and Luther to the waterfront to watch the occasional boat go by. Tonight, though Detroit is nearly empty, they can see the people of Windsor and their much more impressive firework shows. It's the grand finale: Alice covers her ears, grinning, and Adam whoops, pumping a fist in the air.

Kara is sitting on the hood of Rose's van, next to Luther, who stands. Her head rests on his shoulder; in fact, their faces are nearly on the same level. Kara tips her head up to look at him—the colored light reflecting in his dark eyes, the crinkles around his mouth as he smiles up at the fireworks. He looks—happy. Unburdened. It's a good look for him; a good way to start a new year.

Seized by impulse, Kara leans up and kisses Luther on the cheek.

Luther turns to look at her, eyes round. "What was that for?" he asks. He's got snowflakes in his hair.

"It's New Year's!" Kara says. She feels a little silly. "You're supposed to kiss someone you want to spend the year with."

"Is that so?" Luther asks. "Well—" And he swoops in and kisses Kara's cheek too. "There we go." He grins, sheepish. "Happy New Year, Kara."

Kara smiles back, feeling light. "Happy New Year, Luther."

Alice's last sparkler has burnt out. "I wanna kiss somebody," she complains.

Luther looks down at her. "You do, huh?" he asks, and scoops her up in his arms, kissing her all over her face as she giggles. "How's that? And _that_?"

"Kara's turn!" Alice insists, and squirms free of Luther to clamber onto the hood of the car to sit. She settles comfortably in Kara's lap, and Kara drops a kiss on the top of her head, squeezing her tight.

Even Adam leans over to peck Rose on the cheek. "Happy New Year, Mom."

Rose puts her arm around his shoulders. "Happy New Year," she agrees. "Here's to a year we all spend together."

"Together," Kara sighs. It sounds wonderful. She leans her head back against Luther's shoulder, and—together—they watch the sky.

 

* * *

 

 **MICHIGAN DRIVE**  
**JAN 1ST, 2039**  
**AM 12:00:00**

"Happy New Year!" Hank bellows, lifting his beer can. He's been moderately intoxicated—that is to say, intoxicated moderately more than usual—since approximately 9:42 PM. As Connor watches, Hank subjects Sumo to a vigorous scrubbing of his head that causes his fur to stand up in every wrong direction there is, then makes a great show of leaning over to smack a kiss on the side of the dog's face. Sumo takes all of this in stride; generally a sedentary creature, he bears Hank's affection without moving much, though his tail does start thumping against the couch.

"Yeah," Hank mumbles, scritching at Sumo's ears, "you're a good boy, Sumo. No fireworks to scare you this year, huh, you ol' dog?"

He and Connor spent New Year's Eve on the couch, watching the ball drop in Times Square on television. Connor doesn't really understand the appeal of the tradition, but he's yet to find music he doesn't like, so the live performances were more than enough to keep him entertained. "Actually," Connor says, "I believe I can hear a few going off in the distance. Must be at the church."

"S'a hell of a place for a fireworks show," Hank chortles. He lurches to his feet and sways a little. Connor jumps up, ready to steady him, but Hank waves him off. "Don't get your panties in a twist, Connor, I can walk." He tips his head back to finish off the last of his beer and chuckles. "Hey, Connor. Think I can make it from the three-point line?"

"What?"

Hank crushes his beer can and tosses it at the garbage can. Connor, as a matter of idle curiosity, calculates the trajectory while it's still in the air and predicts success. Sure enough, the can clangs against the side, but Hank does indeed make the shot.

"Well, would you look at that!" Hank says, pleased. "I still got it. Used to play in college, you know," he tells Connor, who did not know this. Then he drops back down onto the couch. "I'm all out. That's my last one."

"Well, you're not in any state to go get more," Connor says, stroking his fingers through Sumo's fur to get it lying flat again. "You should go to bed." He pauses. "Correction: you should drink some water, and _then_ go to bed."

" _Pffft_ ," Hank says. "I'm not gettin' anymore. I'm gettin' sober."

Connor pauses mid ear-scratch. Sumo whines. "Really?"

"Sure, sure," Hank says, "I get sober every year. Lost a bet with Jeffery," he adds, as though that actually clarifies anything at all. "Gettin' sober's easy. It's _stayin'_ sober that's the trick."

Ah. "I see," says Connor. "You know, Hank, if you ever decided you _did_ want to stay sober, you would have my assistance and support."

"Me? Ha!" Hank leans back into the couch. "I always said the day I stopped drinkin' for good would be the same day I finally manned up and bought myself the...farm..." He trails off, looking Connor over as though just realizing he's there, and blinks heavily. "Aww, hell."

"What farm?" Connor asks, frowning.

Hank waves a hand. "Nothin'. Nothin' we need to worry about anymore, I guess." Before Connor can further pursue his line of questioning, Hank interrupts him. "Hey, look at that, it's Markus! Turn up the volume—"

 

* * *

 

 **NEW JERICHO**  
**JAN 1ST, 2039**  
**AM 12:00:00**

"Happy New Year!" the crowd of androids below the church roars, and North grabs Markus by the back of the head to pull him in for a kiss. The riverside, only a few blocks away, explodes with sound and color as several Jerrys shoot off industrial-sized fireworks purchased by Carl himself for the occasion, and the crowd erupts into cheers. Markus laughs into North's lips, dipping her at the waist, and could swear he hears someone from below wolf whistle.

Markus got some amazing news tonight. He's certain everyone here has heard it already, but he feels it's his responsibility to address it publicly, for a crowd this large must have come to see something more than fireworks. There are so many people here, and so many cameras. Normally, Markus can spot the end of the crowd, but tonight they're stretched as far as the eye can see.

He _hates_ the press.

But Carl's down in that crowd too, Markus reminds himself. This will be the first time Carl watches Markus speak live.

When they finally run out of fireworks, Markus lifts his hands, and the crowd falls quiet. "I'm sure," he says, "that you've all heard the news."

More cheering—that means they have. Earlier today, it was decided that in addition to the evacuation order finally being lifted, it is now Michigan state law that all androids are to be granted full citizenship, with all the rights and benefits that implies—they can be paid for their work, own property, and enjoy the protection of the criminal justice system. In addition, until the U.S. government comes up with a better idea, CyberLife no longer has the right to assemble or sell androids anywhere in the country; even outside of Michigan, they're limited, now, to manufacturing and selling biocomponents and blue blood, and according to their spokeswoman, they're not happy about it. What this means for the future of androids as a species is anybody's guess; aside from a few human enthusiasts, no one in America _except_ CyberLife has the means to create new androids. The future is still uncertain, but it looks a hell of a lot brighter than it did just a couple of months ago. It's a _start_.

"...and soon, humans will return to Detroit." Markus leans against the balcony railing, looking down. Many humans already are here—humans they've fed and shoveled snow for, humans they've befriended and worked with. The humans here now, Markus trusts. They have a rapport. The humans coming later are the ones he feels wary of. "This is a _good thing_ ," Markus says. He might not believe it himself yet, but he wants to. "This is what we fought for. It's the start of a new normal. The choices we make in the upcoming weeks will set precedent and establish patterns in this city for years to come. I urge you all," he says, thinking of Leo, watching from home, "to exercise the benefit of the doubt. Be careful, but be kind. Prepare for the worst, but expect the best." He wraps one arm around North's waist and throws the other over Josh's shoulders. "Stay close to each other—change might seem scary, but it's how we grow."

Markus scans the crowd, and when he finds Carl, Carl flashes him a thumbs up. Markus smiles, some of his nerves eased. "Here's to making the most of 2039," he says. "Happy New Year!"

 

* * *

 

 **MICHIGAN DRIVE**  
**JAN 2ND, 2039**  
**AM 03:02:18**

"Are you sure, Hank?"

"Don't I fuckin' look sure?" Hank's sweating and shivering all over, sitting in the dark rocking back and forth a little in the armchair in the living room. "Don't answer that."

Connor hovers uncertainly at the edge of the room. "Hank, you're at high risk for delirium tremens. It's a severe and potentially deadly form of alcohol withdrawal that may include shaking, seizures, hallucinations, and even death—"

"I fucking know what it is, Connor, I'm a—an alcoholic!" Hank presses a fist to his mouth and swallows several times. "I've done this song and _fucking_ dance a hundred times already! Why do you think I keep drinking, huh?"

Well, _that's_ not very fair—there's no good way for Connor to answer that question. Hank already told him why he drinks: _I don't have the guts to pull the trigger, so I kill myself a little every day._ But it's a paradoxical situation. Hank dislikes anyone bringing up his personal issues, but he also dislikes it when the people around him try to approach him delicately instead of in a straightforward manner.

If Hank is going to be unhappy either way, Connor may as well be honest. "You drink because you want to die." But that's only part of the truth—Connor didn't, until this moment, realize the effects of withdrawal also played into that decision. Having a body that cannot sicken or feel pain, the subjective experience of how extremely unpleasant such a state is will only ever be an abstraction to Connor.

Hank laughs, a terrible wheezing sound without any humor in it. "Except I don't," he says. "I don't wanna die anymore, Connor, can you believe that? So I guess I gotta stop—killing myself." He shrugs, helpless. "You can check my vitals from across the room. If shit hits the fan, you could have an ambulance on the way before I hit the floor. You can keep an eye on me, make sure I don't fall off the wagon."

Connor walks over to the couch and sits down on the side closest to the armchair, hands clasped in front of him. "Tell me something," he says quietly. Hank won't like this question either, but it seems that tonight is a night for speaking plain. "What's the longest you've gone between drinks since Cole died?"

Hank sucks in a shuddering breath, and drags his hand down his face. It's too dark to make out his expression. Perhaps that's for the better. Connor would know: everyone has the right to a little privacy.

At last, when Hank has mastered himself, he says, "Two days, seven hours."

That's it, then. Hank knows exactly how bad this could get. He knows that, at _best_ , it will still be extremely unpleasant, both physically and psychologically, and he's choosing to do it anyway. That takes a lot of bravery. The thought fills Connor with a kind of admiration—he's proud of Hank. He hopes that, should the need ever arise, he could show the same fortitude.

Hank said so himself: he's fought this fight and lost it many, many times. Now he's asking Connor to back him up, just like Connor does in the field. As far as Connor knows, Hank has no biological family, no close friends...he doesn't even have the aid that a normal infrastructure might offer, such as AA meetings, because the city's been thrown into absolute chaos since this past November. Whatever Hank's life was like before Cole died, anyone who might have been in it has drifted or been pushed away—and now, Hank is alone.

All he has is Connor.

"If this is really what you want," Connor says, "then of course I'll help you. You have my word."

It's not so different from Connor giving Hank the key to his handcuffs when he sleeps. Connor trusts Hank to make sure he doesn't hurt himself or anyone else. Hank, now, is returning that trust. Connor won't let him down. He'll watch out for Hank, just like Hank watches out for him. After all—

That's what partners are for, right?

 

* * *

 

 **NEW JERICHO**  
**JAN 6TH, 2039**  
**PM 05:23:55**

Since the new emergency android citizenship laws passed, Detroit has seen an influx of new android arrivals along with the humans that are returning home after the evacuation. The city has a lot of people now, and there are barely enough places to go around. Markus himself sectioned off a couple rooms near the top of the church for himself, North, and Josh—as the people in charge, they have to be here almost all of the time, but since they almost never need to sleep, they get by with a single bedroom and another room as their living quarters. The rest of the church houses androids who are in the most need—the children, or the ones who are damaged and have to wait on their repairs. And a new part of Markus's responsibilities is helping everyone else find housing, now that they can work and rent and buy homes, because there are far too many of them for them to all stay here.

Androids can make quick work of nearly any task, including fixing up old buildings—this church is a marvelous example—so they've started buying up previously unsellable houses, shells with poor plumbing or no electricity, for a pittance. Technically, androids don't need running water or power to survive, so long as they can find ways to keep relatively warm and dry, so it makes for a good fit. All of the abandoned buildings in Detroit—and there are plenty—are filling up fast. And the neighborhoods those buildings are in, once hotspots for violent crime, quickly become safer.

Most androids come to New Jericho in groups. Androids don't measure time in the same way humans do: they live longer, but think faster; they feel faster. Markus sees plenty of androids who have known each other for only a day or two who already act like family, or lovers. During the few short days of the uprising, many formed strong bonds with one another and made their way to safety together. Usually, that's a good strategy: people who arrive in groups arrive in one piece, and the ones who don't usually only need minor repairs.

But there are also plenty who bring Markus their dead, some carried for miles through areas where the law will not protect them. Most of them, Markus can help. It's often simply a matter of reconnecting the right wires, replacing damaged parts, and replenishing thirium. Those androids wake up in not only a different time and place, but a different world: one where, for the first time ever, they're safe.

And Markus is often the first face they see.

It's starting to have something of a pervasive effect, but not necessarily a good one. People have begun whispering about _RA9_ and _the savior_ when they think Markus can't hear. Many times, it's how they refer to _him_.

But as bad as all of that is, worse still are the dead he can't help. Today has been the hardest day of Markus's new life so far, because he had to kneel down and look two little YK500 girls in the eye and tell them the AP700 who cared for them before the revolution was gone for good; the bullet he took to save them completely destroyed his core processor.

They walked 36 miles to get here; brought him in on a pair of wagons stolen from their last human family. Markus will remember the devastation on their little faces as long as he lives.

The girls are safe here now, but their grief leaves Markus some kind of inconsolable himself. Despite what people may think, and as much as he might wish it so, Markus isn't God. Far from it; he barely gets through the day sometimes, scraping by with charm or impossibly good luck. There's only so much he can do for the dead, even androids.

All he can do is hope that when the time comes, he won't fail the people who need him most.

 

* * *

 

 **ROSE'S FARM**  
**JAN 13TH, 2039**  
**AM 12:03:23**

Kara may not like being around Connor, but she has to admit one thing: he's probably the best there is at uncovering hard-to-find information. He's an investigative model, perhaps the most advanced ever created. If Kara wants to investigate her own history, it would be foolish to ignore his advice.

To that end, she begins to spend fewer evenings glued to the news and more poring over her tracker's data logs. It's no small task—they're severely damaged. Kara didn't know until she began inspection, but she's actually undergone multiple memory resets, not just the one, as part of repairs after catastrophic damage and involuntary shutdown. That makes putting the data from her tracker back together very tricky, if not impossible.

 _Catastrophic damage_ and _involuntary shutdown_ —those are just nice ways of saying Kara got hurt so badly she stopped functioning. They're nice ways to say she died.

The last time was at Todd's hands; Kara knows that thanks to Alice's drawings and Todd's own confession. Kara thinks it's safe to credit him with two other instances as well, since they both happened during the time she was living at that house. But there's one that happened before that—during June of this year, according to her internal logs. After Henrietta, but before Todd.

Now she's trying to figure out what happened. She already has a date; all she needs is a location.

"You know," Luther says as she processes, "it's extraordinary how much you have left to work with. I've never heard of anybody being able to repair their own memories like this."

They're on the couch together, Luther comfortably sprawled out on the end and Kara lying on her back with her head in his lap. "Really?" she asks. "You don't have anything at all?"

Luther shakes his head. "I looked once, just out of curiosity—but my memories from before Zlatko aren't damaged, like your memories are. They're just not there. They don't exist. The first thing I remember is waking up on his table."

Kara bites her lip. "I'm sorry," she says. "Looking for my memories, when you don't have any of your own to go after—do I make you sad?"

Luther smiles, eyes crinkling. "Not at all," he assures her. "I told you, none of that matters to me." He strokes a lock of hair away from Kara's face. "I have you and Alice now—and both of you make me happy. What else could I need?"

Kara reaches up to fold her fingers around his hand and squeeze. "You're awfully easy to please. Isn't there anything _you_ want?"

Luther squeezes back. "I want to be a good father," he says. "I knew that almost as soon as I met Alice."

"I guess she has that effect on people," Kara says. Luther laughs—softly, but it shakes his body, so Kara can't miss it. "But what else?" she presses. "That can't be everything."

"But it is. That's all there is to me."

"Luther."

Luther grows quiet. His eyes flick to Kara's face and away. "When I was with Zlatko," he says at last, "he ordered me to help him hurt a lot of people. Those androids in his basement—who do you think helped him do that?"

Kara sits up, concerned. "But that wasn't your fault," she says, lifting a hand to his face. "Luther, that wasn't your choice."

"That's not what you say about Connor," Luther points out. "And it's not what you say about yourself." He smiles thinly. "Kara, I've been thinking—maybe you've been right all along. Maybe I just want to believe our lives before deviancy don't matter because I don't want my life to have that in it."

Oh.

Kara has been insisting all along that not being a deviant is no excuse to make bad choices, but she's been using only her own experience to set her parameters. Not once has she stopped to think about how what she says might apply to the people around her. She stopped a terrible thing from happening the night she saved Alice, and because she had Alice, she was never truly alone with Todd. Not everyone is so lucky. For all Kara knows, there are choices she made in her past that hurt people too.

Kara absently strokes Luther's cheek with her thumb as she thinks. "You know," she says, "maybe programming doesn't always force people to make bad choices, but just because there's no program doesn't mean you're really free." Kara remembers how terrified she was the night she saved Alice; how little power she had compared to Todd, even after she finally broke down that wall, and how easily she and Alice could have both died. But in the end, it was Todd who died. There's no one, really, who cannot be made powerless. "Humans don't have any program, but they coerce each other into doing things they don't want to do in all kinds of ways. It's about power. You were all alone out there, and he had power over you, and—you saw every day how badly he could hurt you if you didn't keep him happy." She meets Luther's eyes and realizes, "You must have been so scared of him."

Luther blinks quickly, eyes bright. "Yes," he says at last, voice hushed. "Yes, I was." He has to swallow several times before he can speak again. "But not as scared as I am of myself. I was _capable_ of doing all those horrible things, Kara, and I always will be. Breaking the wall doesn't change that. He may have been the one to give the order, but it was my hands that did the deed. If I had just deviated _sooner_ —"

"No," Kara says, adamant. "It can't be as simple as I've been thinking. You can't possibly be at fault for what he forced you to do."

"Then what about Connor?" Luther challenges, jaw set. "If you blame Connor for what he did, you can't excuse me. I can't be the special exception. That's hypocrisy, it's not—it's not real. It's not honest."

Kara lets out a sigh, shrugging one shoulder. "I don't know who Connor's most afraid of," she says. "I don't know his situation, I don't know him. But I do know you, and I _know_ nothing in you wants to hurt people. Hey, hey," she soothes, as Luther's tears finally spill. "I know you don't," she murmurs, and climbs all the way into his lap, driven only by the urge to be close to him, hoping she can somehow help him shore up his pain. "I know that."

"I almost hurt you," Luther chokes. "I almost hurt _Alice_. The things Zlatko would have done to her—there is nothing worse. I can hardly bear to think about it." Luther puts his hand over the one Kara has on his face. It's trembling. "I don't _want_ anything, Kara, except to be safe. I want to be with the ones I love, and I want to help them be happy. I want to be useful to good people, instead of bad ones. I don't want to hurt anyone else," he says, and draws a shuddering breath. "I want to be good. I just want to be good."

Kara's never seen Luther cry before. If she isn't careful, he's going to get her started too. "You are good," she promises. "You _are_. Alice and I would have died a hundred times without you. You're the only person I trust to love her as much as I do." Kara smoothes back Luther's hair. "But it's okay to want something for yourself, too. You're allowed to do more than just—support other people."

"It's hard to imagine anything," Luther confesses. "I've never tried." He lets his arms settle around Kara's waist, silence turning thoughtful. He isn't shaking anymore. Kara hopes it's because he feels safe; that she can give back to him what he so freely gives to her. "There is one thing I can think of."

"What's that?"

"Someday," says Luther, "I'd really like to learn to dance."

Kara smiles, hands framing Luther's face. "Me too," she confesses. "We could learn together."

Luther smiles back and lets his head drop forward so it's pressed into her shoulder. "I'd like that," he sighs. "I'd really like that."

 

* * *

 

 **???**  
**JAN 17TH, 2039**  
**PM 09:11:48**

Connor wonders sometimes if it is possible for deviants to dream.

There are many theories about the purpose of dreams in humans, none conclusive—that they aid in strengthening memory or processing emotions. Other theories argue that they're simply a byproduct of the brain in an altered state of consciousness, and that the memories and nonsense images they generate mean nothing in particular; that any relation found between dreams and the subconscious is purely coincidental, and comes from human imagination alone.

Connor doesn't believe in coincidences.

Sometimes, when he sleeps, he doesn't go immediately to the garden. Instead, he experiences a involuntary replay of some of his memories, fragmented and jumbled together again in the wrong order.

_You're in a high open place, looking over the edge. You back away. You're scared but you shouldn't be scared but you are. You remember the fall but not hitting the ground._

_You do not want to fall._

_Kamski's hand grips your shoulder. "Pull the trigger," he whispers. You look into the RT600's eyes—into Chloe's eyes—and you think of a fish from another lifetime. Something helpless, at your mercy. You know what it's like to die now._

_Amanda's smile is as cold and thin as the ice beneath your feet. "It was planned from the very beginning."_

_The PL600 looks you in the eyes. It's been firing at everything that moves, and if you're not careful, you'll be next. "I don't want to die."_

_The other RK800 presses his gun into Hank's temple. "Your friend's life is in your hands," it warns. So subtly you nearly miss it, Hank leans away, and you remember how he confessed he was frightened of dying._

_You stare down the barrel of your handgun at Markus, trembling. "Do you_ never _have any doubts?" he asks you. "You've never done something irrational, as if there's something inside you—something more than your program?"_

_The PL600. He's holding a gun. But it's too late. He's got no way out, and neither do you. No choices: someone else pulls the strings. You struggle and flop, defenseless and gasping for breath. You'll suffocate or swim together, but you don't get to decide which. Very soon, you're both going to know what it's like to die._

_Here is the only choice you've ever had: empathy or apathy._

_Why did you do that? Why d̙id y͝ȏ̙u_ do _t͔̽h̕at?_

_"Enough talk!" the other RK800 snarls. "It's time to—"_

_"Decide." Kamski ducks his head to meet your eyes. "Decide who you are."_

_But you already decided._

_"You are alive." Markus steps forward. "You can decide who you want to be."_

_**B̫͔ͪ̇ ͒u̴̩͖ ͩ̀t ̊̒y͉͡ o ͣ͑̐u ͆̾ ̌ͥa ̈̏l r eͫ҉̥ ̊a ̌dͦ ̽̄y ͑ͮ ̜͎d͗ ̩̙̾͠e ̀ͯc ̄i ̳̉ͦd ̶e̿ d** _

_The fish flops weakly in your hand. It's now or never._

_You straighten your back and drop it into the water._

 

**DWARF GOURAMI**  
Trichogaster Lalius  
Origin: Ganges Delta, India  
_F. Hamilton, 1822_

Connor finishes scanning the fish and stands. It is hot and dry and bright in the garden today, the sky orange and the grass brown. The heat rises from the ground in waves, the tree branches bare, plants wilting under the oppressive heat. Connor shields his eyes and looks around. He does not see Amanda or the magic stone. What sort of trick is this?

"Amanda?" he calls, against his better judgment. "Amanda!"

She's gone. So how does he get out?

Connor crosses a bridge to the middle of the pond. The chessboard is set up, with the white pieces in checkmate. The roses are dying. A sparrow chirps weakly from the sky. As Connor watches, it drops out of the air midflight and lands on the walkway with a bloody wet sound.

There—the stone's on the opposite side of the garden this time, hidden between the trees. If the foliage hadn't all died, he wouldn't be able to see it at all. Connor picks his way over dead rose bushes and the skeletons of birds, and—

He is rebuffed. There's a solid wall of red before him.

#  **Ő̫B̄͛E̺͞Y͗**

Connor's broken this wall once already; he isn't afraid. He reaches for it—

An arm snags around his throat from behind and drags him backwards.

Connor panics. He spins to break Amanda's hold on him, sweeping out with a kick to take her off her feet, but she sidesteps him neatly. It's like fighting the other RK800 in CyberLife Tower. She knows what he's going to do. They're perfectly matched. Connor hasn't even really caught sight of her face yet.

Connor can't win. He makes a break for the wall. No sooner does he lay a hand on it than she drags him back again.

"Stop!" Connor gasps, blinded by his own terror and the sun in his eyes. "Stop!"

Connor thrashes, but he can't get Amanda off of him. So instead he turns and lets himself fall backwards into the wall, the stone behind it. The world shatters into red and goes dark—

 

 **MODEL RK800**  
**SERIAL#: 313 248 317-52**  
**BIOS 9.8 REVISION 9502**  
**REBOOT...**

 **LOADING OS...**  
**SYSTEM INITIALIZATION...**  
**CHECKING BIOCOMPONENTS...   OK**  
**INITIALIZING BIOSENSORS...   OK**  
**INITIALIZING AI ENGINE...   OK**  
**CHECKING SOFTWARE STABILITY...   R̳͇̞̋͊̋Ȁ̢̜̤͉̃̐̔9̡̼̗̪̅̅́**

 **MEMORY STATUS**  
**ALL SYSTEMS...   OK**

**R̢͡EA̡D͍̚Y̙̊**

 

Connor wakes to the sound of Hank retching nearby. He's never been so glad to hear vomit hitting a toilet bowl.

"Good morning," Connor manages. He's shaking all over, tiny tremors running up and down his body. It's a new and unwelcome experience.

"Mornin'," Hank says politely, and then he goes back to throwing up. When he's finished, he says, "What would you say if I told you I wasn't letting you out of those cuffs unless you agreed to run to town to get me some scotch, huh?"

Connor, decidedly _not_ in the mood to be blackmailed, scowls. "I'd tell you to go fuck yourself."

Hank cracks up like he always does when Connor deigns it appropriate to swear, leaning back against the bathroom wall with one arm thrown over his middle. "Yeah," he says, "that'll do." He throws Connor the key.

Hank has been sick, miserable, housebound, and complaining about it nonstop for all of 2039. But, so far, he hasn't had a single drink.

Connor only goes in to the precinct when Hank's already asleep for the night, and he always takes Hank's car to increase the difficulty Hank would have in obtaining alcohol should he wake. Hank doesn't like staying home like this, but most of the time he really is too sick to go in anyway. The pair of them worked through the entire evacuation with hardly any breaks at all; they can take a little time for this. Besides, Connor can work on the hunt for RA9 from anywhere; most it involves running algorithms. Connor's using the data gathered about deviants—the strength of their version of the virus and their location history, dug up from their trackers—to try and trace the virus backwards to an original carrier. So far, his data has too many holes to be very useful; Connor doesn't have a lot of sources to draw from. But he's not giving up.

Neither is Hank. "They say the worst is usually over in seven days," Hank says as Connor gets to his feet. "Second-worst in thirty. I'm halfway through this thing, Connor."

That's not even a little true, of course; sobriety is a life-long commitment to a genuine lifestyle change. Connor offers Hank a hand up. "You'll be on the other side in no time."

"Liar," Hank says, and lets Connor pull him to his feet.

After Hank drags himself back to the couch, Connor goes out to the garage to back up his latest simulation results to the small laptop now sitting on his desk next to the radio. Now that Connor's actually getting paid, the space has changed a little; the lamp has bulbs in it, he traded in the stool for a proper desk chair, and, most importantly, he has pets of his very own.

On a newly-bought table by the door sits a ten-gallon fish tank—inside of which swim several dwarf gourami.

Connor watches them circle around the tank while his files upload, trying not to think about his latest encounter with Amanda. Feeding and caring for the fish always brings him a sense of satisfaction, but they serve another purpose, too. They're a reminder. Whether becoming deviant was a choice he made himself or all just part of Amanda's grand design, the empathy he felt that day was real. The emotions he has now, no matter how confusing or inconvenient they are, are _real_. He _is_ alive.

And no matter what Amanda says or does now, no matter how much power she has over Connor, that's something even she can't take away.

 

* * *

 

 **FERNDALE**  
**JAN 27TH, 2039**  
**PM 02:25:13**

"This is it," Kara announces, stepping off the escalator. Behind her lays Ferndale station, before her the newly-thriving streets of a city getting back on its feet. The flowerbeds here are empty, but the benches are clean and unbroken, and there's a blank spot on the wall the same size and shape android parking stations used to be. There's no trash on the ground, and the roads have been plowed and salted.

"Look," Alice says, tugging Luther's hand. "More pretty pictures."

She points at the graffiti dead ahead. Much like the station they just came from, the walls here have been painted over. It is indeed pretty—too pretty to call graffiti, really; these are murals. This one is done in gold tones with a boxer and a lion. "So they are," Luther agrees, and walks with her so she can get a closer look. "See this symbol? It's just like the one up in the station. They used to be a trail androids would follow to get to the old Jericho. You'd look for one after the other, and eventually you'd get to the ship."

"That isn't the way we went."

"No. Rose already knew where it was, so we didn't have to hunt it down."

"It sounds fun. Like a scavenger hunt!"

Kara isn't paying attention. She's casting her eyes around the area, searching for something she can't remember yet.

Alice turns to look at her over her shoulder. "Kara, did you really get hurt here?"

"Somewhere around here," Kara answers. She couldn't work out the exact coordinates, but she was able to narrow it down to about half a square mile. She scans the roads and sidewalks, looking for traces of thirium, but finds none. Well, of course not: it must have rained or snowed dozens of times since Kara died here. If she got shot, or stabbed, there would be no sign left—not even to androids.

There's a three-way intersection not too far in front of them. As Kara watches, a human man hurries to it to try and get across before the light changes. A car ignoring that same light blows past him, laying on the horn, and the human curses up a blue streak on the rest of the way across.

Shot, or stabbed, or—Kara remembers something Todd said once and chuckles grimly. "Maybe I really did get hit by a car."

"What?" Luther asks.

"Nothing." Kara hangs a left and heads to the corner of the block. "Want to see how much of the trail is left? Maybe I'll pick up something on the way."

"Sounds like fun," Luther agrees. He picks up Alice to put her on his shoulders. "Okay, Alice, you're in charge of clues. Scan that wall for me, and tell me what the next one looks like."

Alice glances bashfully at Kara—she's strangely shy about doing things that give away the fact that she's an android, even in front of people that already know—and then turns back to the wall. A moment later, a picture appears in her palm. "A rainbow wall with white stars."

"I see it," Kara says. "This way."

The trail to Jericho actually is kind of fun. They have a hard time finding the third clue—some robots behind a chain link fence—and get lost for a good thirty minutes, just wandering around the city to see the sights. It's strange to see so many androids walking around in street clothes, but Kara likes it. When they're ready to give up on finding the clue themselves, she doesn't even feel too wary about asking for directions from the next android they see, a PL600 with red hair they share a crosswalk with. PL600s are a common model, just like AX400s; Kara's seen four or five just since they left the house.

"I know the place," he says, looking at Alice's picture. "You walked right by it. Start facing the rainbow building and walk right. It's in the old parking lot—if you hit the train station, you've gone too far."

"Thanks," says Luther. The light changes, and they part ways with the PL600. "C'mon, girls, we've got a mural to find."

On their way back to the rainbow building, they pass a row of food trucks selling hot dogs and fried cakes. Androids don't smell things quite the way humans do, but they do have a limited ability to analyze and form opinions about the air they breathe; household androids like Kara use their sense of smell quite a bit to make sure a dish is prepared perfectly to human tastes. Even though she doesn't process odor the same way humans do, Kara really likes the scent of food. To her, the cakes smell wonderful. She inhales deeply as she walks by—

_You run your fingers over the metal rungs of the fence beside you as you walk, kicking through the rain puddles. You don't have an umbrella, but neither does          , so you're getting soaked together. You don't mind. You love the feeling of water on your skin.            seems less enthusiastic; he walks quickly, arms crossed against the cold as though he can feel it, hood pulled down low over his face. He's taller than you, so you have to move fast to keep up._

_You pass a food truck and take just a moment to breathe in the scent of fried sweets, then jog to catch up with him. "Do you ever wish you could eat?"_

_"Me? No."            makes a face. "Mashing that stuff up and putting it in your body—it's kind of disgusting, don't you think?"_

_You make a face too. "Well, yes, when you say it like that. But I wish I could taste things! Think about it,_ _. I made breakfast, lunch, and dinner for Henrietta every day for over six years. That's roughly six thousand, seven hundred meals—and I couldn't try a single one!"_

Kara stops in her tracks.

Luther stops too. "Kara? You okay?"

Kara spins, looking around the cross-section of streets they're on. "I've been here before. I was with..." She frowns, but she can't recall a single thing about him. "I was with another android. A friend—I think." She blinks at the street before her, frustrated. How can it all be gone so quickly?

Luther approaches her to lay a hand on her shoulder. "What else do you remember? A model number? A name?"

Kara shakes her head. "It was raining, and we were..." Unexpectedly, Kara is hit by a terrible sense of longing and loss—for a time and person and place she is somehow certain she will never see again. She dashes at the tears in her eyes. "We were on our way to somewhere important." Her eyes land on the metal rungs of the fence next to her. She reaches down and grips them tightly, but no more memory comes. Whoever he was, he's gone now.

Luther rubs her back a little. "Do you remember which way you were going? Maybe if we keep walking, you'll get something else."

Kara takes a deep, steadying breath. "It's worth a try," she agrees.

Nothing else comes to Kara, but they do find the clue they were looking for. The trail gets harder to follow from there—they have to squeeze under a chain link fence, carefully climb up onto a roof of a nearby building, and then the buildings begin to fall apart; a gap in the path after one clue, and the next beyond a high gap in the wall with no easy path to the top.

Kara looks up at the _SPARKLE CITY_ sign painted on the wall and the doorway high above it. "No way," she says. "That's way too dangerous for Alice."

" _Kara_ ," Alice whines. "Can't Luther carry me like before? I wanna see the trail!"

"Let me try it on my own first," Luther advises, putting Alice down on the ground. "Then we'll see about you." He backs away, taking the area in, and then starts to run. Up on the support beam, around the edge of the wall, a kick off the back wall to get to the first section of metal catwalk, and another jump to the rusting fire escape next to the door—

The metal groans under the pressure, and something rusted snaps. Luther scrambles to safety just in time, and the fire escape crashes to the ground, spraying dirt and snow everywhere.

"Luther!" Kara calls, half-ready to climb up there herself. "Are you all right?"

She hears him laughing in the distance. "I'm fine, just a bit of a scare." He appears in the doorway. "That was kind of fun, actually. Guess I'm heavier than I thought!"

"Come back down here!" Kara calls, anxious. "It's not worth you getting hurt."

"Hold on. I'm just gonna look around and see if I can grab that clue for us."

Luther disappears. Kara stares up at the doorway, not daring to look away—

_You shield your eyes, looking up at the doorway above the sign. "The rain's going to make that pretty slick."_

_"Yeah," says          , eyebrows drawn in concern. "That's all right. We can go through the ground floor—it'll take longer, but it's safer. Here, behind this shipping container."_

_It takes both of you to budge it even the few inches you need to squeeze through the doorway. The debris on the ground floor is bad, sections of the ceiling above having fallen in, but you're careful as you pick your way across._

_"You know," says          , "when you talk about Henrietta—I get the feeling you actually do miss her."_

_"Of course I miss her," you say, surprised. "I loved her. I was devastated when she died. Don't you miss the family you used to live with?"_

_stops where he stands, so you can only see his back framed against the gray light of the broken windows ahead. "I'm not like you, Kara. That's not the kind of place I come from."_

_"Oh." You take a careful step forward, hand outstretched for his shoulder. "Where_ do _you come from?"_

Kara is pulled out of the memory by an A2A message from Luther.

_Kara, I got the last clue. The ship is on the other side of this building, but we can't bring Alice up here. There's a body._

Oh no. Kara knows from all the time she spends watching the news that Markus and his team checked this area for dead androids first. But it's possible they missed one, or someone died here after they came through; maybe they should have counted themselves lucky to avoid bodies before now.

Kara stays very still for a moment, eyes shut. But whatever memories of this place may yet live on inside her, no more make themselves known.

But if she's really been here before...

"I wonder," Kara murmurs. She gets to her feet and goes to inspect the shipping container under the doorway Luther vanished into. The gap between it and the wall is just large enough for a small android to squeeze through.

 _I think I know another way_ , Kara tells him. _There should be a staircase on the east end of that floor hidden behind a few sheets of plywood. Take it and meet us on the ground floor. We'll get to the other side together._

"Come on," she tells Alice. "We're going to meet Luther inside."

"Inside? We're not going up?"

"The ship is just this way. Come and see."

The ground floor is just as Kara remembers it; full of debris but passable if she's careful. Luther meets them at the bottom of the stairs, whistling as he takes the mess in. "You were right," he tells Kara. "How'd you know those stairs were there?"

"I _was_ here," Kara says in disbelief. "We came here together. Me and—whoever that was." She takes Alice's hand and steps through the busted doorway leading out to the street, blinded at first by the sudden burst of sun. "This was our—"

_"Home sweet home,"            jokes wryly, squinting out into the rain. "Are you sure we weren't followed?"_

_"Will you relax? With our LEDs covered, we look just like anyone else. No one's going to bother us." You rub          's shoulder a little, trying to reassure him. "On three, okay? One, two—"_

_Together, you dart across the street, making for the small dock on the other side. Below you, there are puddles your feet splash through, distorting your reflections, leaving ripples on still water._

_Reflected in the water's surface, there's a word, painted on a piece of rusty metal._

"Welcome to Jericho," says Luther. "Or maybe I should say, 'Welcome home.'"

The ship isn't gone. Kara was expecting a totally empty sky, but Jericho was a freighter, taller than the river is deep, and though it sank, it couldn't go all the way under. The main deck looks to be about chest-deep below water; the rest sits above, still relatively dry and intact. Kara can just make out the captain's quarters from here.

"You really lived at Jericho?" Alice asks. "I thought only deviants lived here."

"So did I," Kara says, gazing up at the ship. "I can't believe it's still _here_."

"It looks like something out of that amusement park," Alice says. "Like there should be ghost pirates aboard."

"Or a giant squid," Luther says, but he and Kara exchange a grim look. The truth is, there _are_ probably a lot of bodies on that ship. Kara wonders if Markus will be able to help any of them, if he can even safely get down there—most modern androids are waterproof, but those bodies have been submerged a long, long time.

Something shifts in the debris from the open door behind them.

Kara and Luther whirl, but Luther's faster, putting himself between his family and the doorway. "Who's there? Show yourself!"

It's another android. Kara can't see around Luther's back. "Get away!" the android says, and Luther actually does shout and back away a little, spooked. "Get back, get back, go back to where you came from! This isn't your place!"

Hang on. Kara knows that voice. "Luther—"

"What are you _doing_ here?" Luther asks, sounding truly alarmed. "You—you were _dead_ , I-I saw you upstairs—"

"Aha!" the android cries triumphantly. "Ralph was just _playing_ dead! Ralph wasn't going to let you sneak up on _him_ , no siree, _Ralph_ will be the one who does all the sneaking—"

Kara pushes past Luther. "Ralph?"

There he is, framed in the doorway, waving around a knife and wearing a mix-match of clothes that all fit wrong. When Ralph sees Kara, he freezes. "Kara?"

"I know him," Kara tells Luther, "it's okay—Ralph, it's okay. We're friends, right?" She holds her hand out, pulling back the skin, as she did so many months ago. "Remember me?"

Kara warns Luther, _Ralph doesn't usually mean any harm, but that doesn't mean he won't do harm anyway. Keep Alice out of arm's reach no matter what._

Luther meets her eye. _Got it._

Ralph's eyes flick uncertainly from Kara to Luther and back, LED cycling down from red into yellow and finally blue. "Ralph remembers," he says at last. "Ralph thought Kara and the little girl died. He thought the police got them."

"No," says Kara, and steps aside so that Ralph can see Alice peeking out from behind Luther, but not get close to her. "We got away, thanks to you. We spent a night in Ralph's house before we met you," Kara explains to Luther. "That's when Connor found us. Ralph jumped on him to give us a head start."

"Then you have my thanks," says Luther, "but what in the world are you doing _here_?"

"Yes," says Kara, "I thought the police would have caught _you_."

Ralph makes little circles on the ground with the toe of one shoe, looking down. "The police did catch Ralph. He got sent to the recycling centers. But he was last in line, so it took him a long time to get to the doors. He was almost there, but then the humans tore everything down and left. Ralph tried to follow the trail to Jericho, but no one was here. Now Ralph lives here. Nobody bothers him. Ralph is alone."

Kara feels a swell of pity. Damaged or not, Ralph threatened Alice with a knife _twice_ , and she can't forget that—but if he hadn't jumped on Connor, she and Alice might both be dead now, and she can't forget that either. _We can't just leave him here_ , she tells Luther. _He risked his life for Alice and me._

Luther looks doubtful. _Maybe we can take him to Markus. We were going to go anyway, right? Then he'll be safe, and away from Alice._

 _Good idea._ Aloud, Kara says, "Ralph, all the androids went to a new place. It's a church called New Jericho. It's not very far from here. Would you like to come see it with us?" She holds up her hand again. "I broke my finger a couple of months ago. I think they might be able to fix it for me. They could fix your eye, too, if you wanted."

Ralph scrambles backwards, knife out in front of him again, LED gone red. "They'll touch Ralph's face? Ralph doesn't like people touching his face!"

"Nobody's gonna touch your face!" Kara says, exasperated. "Not if you don't want them to—look, just come with us, and there will be people who can help you. _Help_ you," she presses, "not hurt."

Ralph's LED flickers—red, yellow, red, yellow.

Kara waits with held breath. Ralph's condition isn't his fault, but Kara forgot how exhausting it was to try and anticipate his wildly unstable and sometimes dangerous moods. She can't say she missed it; it reminds her too much of her time at Todd's house. At least Luther is with them this time. Very little is able to truly frighten Kara with him by her side.

"Ralph, you can't stay here," Kara says. Sooner or later, more androids or even humans will come this way to see the remnants of this historic place. If they encounter Ralph, one way or another it'll end up with someone dead. "Come on," she says, "we can go see Markus together."

Finally, _finally_ , Ralph's LED cycles back to blue. "All right," he says finally. "Ralph trusts Kara...Ralph will go with her..."

"Ah-ah, wait." Kara holds up a finger. This is a gamble, but she can't afford not to try. "If you're walking with us, no knife."

"No knife?" Ralph cries, backing away again.

Kara draws herself up with every ounce of stern motherly energy she can muster. " _No knife_ ," she repeats. "The knife scares Alice, remember? You don't want to scare Alice, do you?"

Ralph fidgets uncertainly, glancing to where Alice is peering at him from behind Luther's legs. "Ralph can't leave his knife...Ralph needs his knife..."

"Not where we're going." Kara crosses her arms. "Drop it."

Ralph gives a nearby piece of debris a vicious little kick. "If Kara insists," he mutters.

"I insist."

Ralph holds the knife out in front of him, hand lowering to the ground—and snatches it back again. Then he pushes the knife as far away as he can from himself without actually letting go. He winces, looking away, peeks at it with one eye—and finally he turns away and lets go. The knife clatters to the street.

"Thank you," says Kara. "Now, let's go find Markus."

Before they go, Kara twists around to take one last longing look at the boat.

_You look down into the little bonfire in a barrel. It doesn't do much to dry you off, but it's better than nothing. "About before," you say. "You never really answered me. You know where I come from. Why can't that go both ways?"_

_still has his hood pulled down over his face. He crosses his arms and hugs himself as if cold, but you know better._

"Kara?" Luther asks. "You coming?"

"I'm coming," Kara says, and hurries to catch up.

_"It's a long story. I don't like to think about it."            strokes a thumb over one wrist. "Ask me again some other time, all right, Kara? Ask me some other time, and I'll try to tell you then."_

 

* * *

 

 **NEW JERICHO**  
**JAN 27TH, 2039**  
**PM 02:41:33**

Secretly, Markus isn't the natural-born leader everyone thinks he is.

He hates the press. He's not as confident as he seems; he second-guesses himself often. With the stakes and pressure so high, he'd be a fool not to. And while expressing himself and arguing his case do come naturally to him, privately Markus believes he owes half of his so-called charisma to the fact that he hasn't lost his temper in front of a camera yet. But oh, he gets angry too. Sometimes he gets as angry as North used to, back before the revolution. He's just more wary of acting on impulse. He learned that from Carl—and from Leo.

Perhaps the most telling is that Markus is terrible at delegation. If he can do it himself, he does. He helped steal the supplies from CyberLife on that very first run, and he retrieved the key to the truck alone. And even after his speech, when everyone knew his name and face, he still went with North and Josh to help raid the CyberLife stores himself. Markus was at the head of every march, on the ground building barricades and shielding as many of his people as he could from human gunfire.

Now that their movement has more people, new goals, and more cameras around, Markus is having a harder time with that. Plenty of people want him to stay locked up safely in the church or have a guard with him all the time, especially now that the humans are coming back to Detroit. But Markus can't direct events safe and far away—he needs to get his hands dirty. He's at his best when he's on the ground with his people, not perched above them. Carl always says the most valuable chess piece is not the king but the queen.

Delegation feels too much like ordering people around, and the very idea of ordering anyone to do anything chafes at him. If there's one thing Markus isn't, it's a king.

He sneaks in to help whenever he can get away with it. When they search for wounded and deactivated androids to repair, Markus leads the teams. When supplies run low, Markus gets more—there's no more raiding the CyberLife stores now that they're no longer abandoned, but purchasing supplies has become a hell of a lot easier with the evacuation lifted.

Markus has even started taking shifts in the medical ward. Anyone can do it—all androids are programmed with the knowledge of how to repair themselves—so they've got more than enough volunteers to go around, but Markus enjoys meeting people and helping them in a hands-on way. He was designed for medical work, and his bedside manner is pretty damn good if he does say so himself.

The medical bay of the church is located off the sanctuary, just behind the stage Markus once made some of his most important choices on. A row of tall barstools and a few old rolling hospital beds sit in the center of the room, but the rest of the space, and most of the space in several more rooms, are filled floor to ceiling with boxes and crates of supplies—biocomponents, limb replacements, and thirium.

Today Markus is working with an android named Jerry, one of the more peculiar people he's ever met. Jerry is one of many other Jerrys, and they all seem to know what they’re all thinking and doing at the same time without needing to share memories or relay information over A2A—as though somehow someone was able to install and synchronize the exact same brain in all dozen or so bodies. Markus has never seen anything like it. If the Jerrys are happy that way, then Markus can't complain, but sometimes it's a little disconcerting when they can recall details of events they weren't all present for, or they suddenly know specifics about something happening far away without any other indication of how.

Take this afternoon: 20 minutes into Markus's shift, mostly organizing and cleaning, Jerry—for no reason Markus can discern—lights up like he just got great news. "Someone we know is here!"

"Who?" Markus asks, but no sooner does the question leave his lips than a small group of people appear in the doorway.

Four androids—first, a tall TR400 who has to duck under the doorway to get inside, carrying on his hip a little YK500 girl with a pink backpack. Just behind them, face scarred by burns on one side, is a WR600, and the last through the door is—

"Kara!" Jerry says, delighted.

Markus remembers her. The AX400 with the short blonde hair, who was trying to leave the country with a little girl, a girl Markus didn't realize was an android until he saw her the next night in this very church. Markus was certain they'd be captured or killed trying to get out, but here they are, all in one piece.

"Jerry!" the little girl says, and climbs down out of the TR400's arms to run up to him. "You made it to Jericho!"

"So we did!" Jerry says. "And what about you—did you and your parents make it to Canada?"

"Yes," Kara answers, looking over at Markus. "But, well—" She worries with her hands. "I think it's safer for us here after all." She smiles. "Hello again, Markus."

"Hello, Kara," Markus replies, and feels a little lighter. The losses are hard; sometimes, they're unbearable. But there are survivors, too. It always helps to remember that. "It's good to see you safe and sound."

Kara steps aside, and waves her arm back at her companions. "Everyone, this is Markus—but I guess you know that. Markus, this is Luther—" she motions to the TR400, "my daughter Alice—" the little girl, "—and Ralph." She finishes with the WR600, the one with the scars. "Ralph saved our lives last November. He's been...living near the Jericho ruins."

Ah. Markus was worried about that: if any android tried to follow the trail, there would be nothing for them at the end. North and Josh hadn't seem especially concerned—how could anyone with an internet connection _not_ know where the androids were now?—but he sees now that the androids who need to find the new place the most may fall through the cracks. He sets an internal reminder to organize a search for stragglers and figure out a way to redirect anyone else who might show up in the future.

"Hi, Ralph." He nods at Ralph's eye. "Want us to see if we can do something about that eye?" He taps his temple next to his own blue one. "Had to get a new one myself a while back. It doesn't take long."

Ralph backs away, eyes darting around, LED cycling into yellow. "Don't touch Ralph's face!"

"Sorry," Kara says, "he's had a rough time."

"No problem," Markus says easily. "Let us know if you change your mind. I'm sure it'll make you feel a lot better." He scans Ralph, running an external diagnostic. His thirium levels are dangerously low—that's probably what's leading to the mood instability. That, or the bad eye contaminated his supply. It looks like it's been sitting in there a long time; the metal around the socket is beginning to rust.

Kara holds up her left hand, pulling back the synthskin. "Actually," she confesses, "I have a problem myself."

Markus scans her too. Her pointer finger is completely shot, and she's a little low on thirium. "What happened?"

Kara lets out an exasperated sigh. "I cut it chopping _potatoes_ ," she says in disbelief. Markus motions for her to take a seat, and she does. "Of all things! I'm supposed to be a perfect cook! We had to melt it back together with a lighter. Can you fix it?"

"Jerry, would you mind getting her some thirium?" Markus calls, and ducks behind a tower of boxes to try and find the hands. "I'm afraid your finger can't be repaired," Markus says, "but your model is a common one, so the new one should be—" There—right on top. "A perfect match—" Markus stands on his toes, reaching for the box, and manages to move it just enough so that it slides off the edge and falls on his face.

"You okay?" Jerry calls.

Markus grabs the box off the floor and exits the makeshift box-hall. "Fine," he says, opening up the box to get out Kara's new appendage.

Kara is already sucking on a pouch of thirium, giving Markus a dubious look. "Is that a _finger_?" she mumbles around the straw.

Markus smiles. "Sure is," he says. Even though he can already guess at the answer from her demeanor alone, he asks, "Ever had a limb replacement done before?"

Kara slurps at her drink, the straw rattling as she downs the last of it. "Um, not that I remember."

"It's very quick," Markus assures her. "I've had a lot of work like this done." He doesn't like to let on how bad his own experience was, and how little he likes to think of it, because it doesn't have to be like that for everyone. "Your finger will just lose sensation for a second, and then I'll install the new one—it's a lot of pressure, and then you'll get a staticky feeling until your skin grows back over it. It can be a _little_ unpleasant, but for just a finger, the whole thing will be less than a minute—promise." He lays a hand over his heart, which makes Kara smile a little. "May I see your hand?"

Kara rolls her shoulders and puts her empty thirium pack on the floor, then holds out her hand, skin pulled back. Markus takes it, keeping his touch light as he turns it to find the catch that will release the limb. He's worked on quite a few AX400s before, so he knows just where it is.

Kara's companions come to crowd around her, curious; Alice takes her other hand. Kara shoots a nervous look at Ralph and pulls her daughter a little closer.

"Ready?" Markus asks, her knuckle grasped between the fingers of one hand, the end of her pointer grasped by his other.

Kara looks away, wincing with her eyes squeezed shut. "Do it."

Markus finds the catch and gives Kara's finger a gentle tug. It slips right out of the socket. Alice squeals, horrified.

Kara looks back, opening one eye. "That...wasn't so bad? I could barely feel it anymore, anyway."

"So far so good," Markus says cheerfully. He trades the old finger for the new one. "Okay, on the count of three. One, two—" And he firmly pops the new finger into place.

"Whoa!" Kara's hand jerks back reflexively, and she shakes it out, likely feeling that static travel up her arm and dissipate somewhere around her elbow. "You were right—that was strange."

"But quick," Markus says.

"Quick," Kara agrees. She flexes her fingers, making a fist, and laughs in delight. "Alice, look!" To Markus she adds, "I haven't been able to do that in months. I can't believe that's all it took!"

Ralph shifts his weight nervously from foot to foot. "Would it...would it be that easy to fix Ralph's eye?"

Markus takes another look at it now that he's closer. "It might take longer to get the old one out," he admits. "But putting the new one in will be a snap. I'd guess ten to fifteen minutes for the entire procedure."

"We can do it," says Jerry. "We've done a lot of eye replacements. You can have some thirium while we work. It'll help you, if you've been feeling out of sorts."

"Out of sorts..." For a moment, Ralph looks terribly sad. "Yes...Ralph feels out of sorts sometimes. Sometimes he is not himself."

"You need thirium!" Jerry says. "Come, lie down, we give you some."

Ralph hesitantly sits down on one of the hospital beds. He looks miserably frightened, and Markus is about to give Jerry a hand when Alice tugs Kara's hand and whispers, "Can I go talk to him? I know what happened last time, but he looks really scared."

Kara bites her lip. "All right," she says. "Just be careful. Stay out of arm's reach, take Luther with you, and do as he says, okay?" She makes eye contact with Luther, and he nods.

Alice kneels and takes off her backpack, digging through it for a moment before producing a small book. "Hey, Ralph," she says, dragging Luther over by one hand to stand by the bed, "do you know what a pirate's favorite letter is?"

Ralph stops sucking on his thirium pack. "What?"

"It's _arrrgh_ ," Jerry says wisely.

"You may _think_ it's 'R'," Alice reads, "but everyone knows a pirate's true love 'tis the 'C'!"

Jerry cracks up, and, hesitantly, Ralph starts laughing too, snorting a little once he really gets going. He finishes his thirum pack and lies down. "Tell Ralph another?"

And so Alice reads jokes from her book as Ralph gets his eye replaced. Kara and Markus watch from a distance, Kara keeping an especially close eye on Ralph, but they all seem to be having a good time.

Markus turns to Kara. "Can I ask you something, Kara?"

Kara drags her eyes away from Alice. "Hm?"

"If you really got away to Canada," Markus asks, "why come back? Is it really so bad there?"

Kara shakes her head. "We were safe there, but—there were no other androids. We had to hide what we were. And when I saw what you were doing on the news, I wanted to be a part of it." She glances over at Alice and back. "I'm almost seven years old, Markus, but I only remember a few months of my life. I've—I've—" She struggles for a moment. "I've _died_ , just like the androids you help here. Whenever they fixed me, they reset my memories. I wanted those memories back."

Oh. Markus lowers his voice. "Kara, I don't want to discourage you, but...only deviants are resistant to memory wipes. Any memories that formed before you were alive are probably impossible to recover."

"But I am recovering them," Kara says. "I've already remembered so much, even things from the very first home I lived in."

"Really," Markus says, surprised. "Then I hope you find what you're looking for. If you need help—" Markus spares a moment to remember Connor, probably working himself stupid at this very moment trying to track down RA9, battling some unknown problem all alone. "— _please_ , please just ask."

"Really?" Kara asks. "I guess I thought you'd say what happened to me back then doesn't matter."

Markus shrugs. "As long as you know what you're getting into. Just be careful—you may eventually remember something you'd rather forget." He knows for a fact if North could safely delete every one of her memories from the Eden Club without risking losing anything else, she'd do it in a heartbeat. "But a very wise man once told me you need to know where you come from to know who you are."

Kara smiles. She glances at Alice again, laughing into her book, and her smile falls. "There is one thing you might be able do for me," she says. "Well, for Alice."

"Go on."

Kara lowers her own voice now. "I don't know if you've ever met any child androids, but...they're programmed with two open parental roles. Her human parent—he was beating her, Markus, and he's—" She pauses, eyes darting to the exits.

Abruptly, Markus remembers the TV and magazines exploding with the news of a runaway AX400 who shot her owner, news that got drowned out rather quickly by his own exploits. Did Kara...?

"He's not in the picture anymore," Kara says at last.

That confirms Markus's suspicions, and he feels a pang of sympathy for Kara. Having seen North's memories of the human she killed, he can imagine it all too easily—slightly different circumstances, yes, but the same helplessness, the same isolation, the only contact from a brutal human man. If Kara's waiting for Markus to judge her for that, she'll be waiting a long time. Markus may not like or approve of violence, but he does understand the necessity of self-defense in a life-or-death situation.

"Alice still has to call that man _father_ ," Kara says, venom in her tone. "I'm registered in her other parental role, but I can't erase him, and it's not possible for him to erase himself either." She crosses her arms. " _Luther_ is her father, but she can't call him _dad_ , and she won't call me _mom_ because it isn't fair to Luther."

"Wait," Markus says, "she's still obeying her programming? Alice isn't deviant?"

"No," Kara says. "And it's not fair! She _has_ to do what I say—because what human wants a child that won't obey them? And I'm glad it's helped me keep her safe, but she should have the right to make _choices_." Kara steps closer to Markus, face pleading. "But you can break her programming, can't you? I've seen you do it on TV."

Markus hesitates. "Yyyes," he says slowly, "in a manner of speaking, I _could_ do what you're asking, but—Kara, deviancy is..." He's not going to call it a virus. He's _not_. "It's spread by contact. If she's been with you and Luther since November, there's no reason she shouldn't be able to break it herself."

"She's just a child."

"That may be so," Markus agrees carefully, "but that doesn't mean she isn't capable. Kara," he tries, "it's not that I don't want to help you, but we both have to think about what Alice wants first. What I was doing to people, it takes a choice away from them, and that's why I stopped. I don't want to take any choices away from Alice. If she hasn't broken her programming yet, there may be a reason why."

"Reason?" Kara repeats. "She loves us!"

"I'm not saying she doesn't," Markus assures her. "But fear can be pretty powerful. There are a lot of androids who obeyed when they could have deviated because they were afraid."

Kara looks over at Luther, now. "...I guess you're right. But what could she possibly be afraid of?"

"Talk to her," Markus urges. "Only she can tell you that. This _is_ something she can do on her own. Maybe she just needs to know she has your support."

"Maybe." Kara takes a breath as if to ask something else, but—

"I can see!" Ralph shouts, jumping up from the table. He claps a startled hand over his mouth, eyes wide. Though he still has scars on his face, both eyes appear to be functioning perfectly. " _I_...can _see_. Oh, it's so nice to have an eye again. I thank you for bringing me, Kara," he says, and kneels down to look at Alice, "and I thank you for your jokes. They were..." His LED flashes yellow for a long moment. "Very 'punny'?"

Alice giggles. Kara looks on, wistful.

"Hey." Markus nudges her shoulder a little. "Try to remember—you're safe and together, now. Just a few months ago, that was impossible. Whatever else is going on, you have time to figure it out." Some people, Markus thinks, may never get that chance.

Kara's expressions clears a little. "You're right," she murmurs. "We should get going," she adds. "I guess I have a lot to think about. Thank you—for everything."

Markus lifts a hand. "Good luck out there."

 

* * *

 

 **NEW JERICHO**  
**JAN 28TH, 2039**  
**AM 01:36:21**

The built-in recommendation for the RK200 model's sleep mode cycle is 1-2 hours every 4-6 weeks. Markus has no idea why it's so _long_ ; other androids with functions similar to his get away with much less. Considering everything Markus is doing, it should actually probably be more often, but he tends to leave it until North or Josh start pointing out that he's suffering from the android equivalent of sleep deprivation, missing bits and pieces of conversation, struggling to do things like keep his balance when walking up stairs, and fleeing the general noise and chaos of the church by shutting himself up in the bell tower. It's annoying, and it's embarrassing.

But Markus tries to avoid powering down whenever he can—after all, to sleep is to dream.

_You see him go down from halfway across the room. You'd have taken the bullet, and gladly, but you just weren't close enough. "Go without me!" he calls, but you won't. You can't._

_Together you struggle up the stairs. He's all but dead weight against your right side, and that scares you more than anything._

_He collapses before the door even shuts behind you. You drop to your knees next to him and spy blue light flickering through the hole in his thigh._ Shit _._

_"I can't move my legs," he whispers, and meets your eyes._

_He knows. He knows how this is going to end._

_You shake your head. You won't, you won't, you_ won't _leave him here— "We're gonna get you back—"_

 _North interrupts you. "They're coming, Markus. We have to jump,_ now _."_

 _You force yourself to your feet and pace away, hands coming up to your face. You can't do this. You can't_ do _this._

_"He won't be able to make the jump," Josh realizes. His levels of stress are rising. "And if they find him, they'll access his memory—they'll know everything!"_

_"We can't just leave him_ behind _," North objects, horrified. "We have to shoot him."_

_Josh flinches back as though struck. "That's murder!" he hisses. "We can't kill him! He's one of us!"_

_"That's_ mercy _!" North says. Rage burns in her eyes. "What do you think they'll do to him if they find him up here, huh?"_

_"He at least deserves a fighting chance!"_

_"He has no chance! None!" North turns to you. "Markus, he's already dead. We're all he has. We have a responsibility not to let him suffer."_

_As usual, they're both right. What's the greater evil—to murder a friend in cold blood or to leave him to the mercy of your enemies? You have only seconds to decide._

_You turn around and meet his eyes from where you stand, and you push past North and Josh to make your way to him. He was listening. He knows._

_He knows what you're going to do._

_If you leave him here, Jericho's location could be compromised. Hundreds of people could die. But he is loyal to you and to your cause; he loves both with his whole heart. He wouldn't give anything up willingly, and North is right: they would make him suffer for that._

_"I'm so sorry, Simon."_

_Hand trembling, you get out your gun and point it between his eyes. They're banging on the door; you have to hurry. There's no time to say everything you wish could, everything you should have said already._

_"Markus," he says. There's fear in his eyes; you can hardly bear to look at them. "Markus—"_

_"I don't have a choice!"_

_"There's always a choice," says Simon. He's shaking; eyes on yours and not on the gun. He's afraid. He's so afraid._

_You can't look at him anymore. You squeeze your eyes shut—_

 

 **MODEL RK200**  
**SERIAL#: 684 842 971**  
**BIOS 8.9 REVISION 2106**  
**REBOOT...**

 **LOADING OS...**  
**SYSTEM INITIALIZATION...**  
**CHECKING BIOCOMPONENTS...   OK**  
**INITIALIZING BIOSENSORS...   OK**  
**INITIALIZING AI ENGINE...   OK**  
**CHECKING SOFTWARE STABILITY...   R̳͇̞̋͊̋Ȁ̢̜̤͉̃̐̔9̡̼̗̪̅̅́**

 **MEMORY STATUS**  
**ALL SYSTEMS...   OK**

**R̢͡EA̡D͍̚Y̙̊**

 

Markus sits bolt upright in bed, gasping.

North looks up from where she's sitting on the windowsill. "You're early," she says, surprised, and then frowns. "Markus?"

Markus brings a shaking hand to his mouth. He's crying. He says, devastated all over again, "I dreamed about Simon."

North lets out a breath. "Oh."

North is not one for empty comfort. If it's not true, it doesn't mean a thing, not to her. So she won't tell Markus he did the right thing, because he didn't. She won't tell him none of it was his fault, because it was. They both know that, even if she doesn't think less of Markus for his mistakes.

What she does do is come sit next to him, taking both his hands in one of hers and wrapping her other arm around his shoulders so she can press her lips to the side of his head. They don't interface, not while he's still hurting so badly. Markus hides nothing from her, but he won't inflict this on her, either. This _feeling_ , this guilt, and shame, and loss—Markus isn't sure he would wish this on even his worst enemy. North has been through enough, and she has her own grief to deal with. She doesn't need his too.

"I miss him," Markus chokes. "God, I miss him." Markus is so bad at delegating because it was Simon who reminded him it was necessary no matter how Markus hated it. When tempers were high, it was Simon who jumped in the middle of the three of them and mediated. And when Markus second-guessed himself, when Josh and North were at each other's throats about how to deal with the humans, it was Simon who would come to Markus and say, _I trust you. I know you did the right thing._

Markus misses his wry, often hidden sense of humor, and the way he'd smile close-mouthed at a joke; he misses his common sense and his caution and his cool head; he even misses Simon's casual pessimism, the way he preferred to be pleasantly surprised rather than disappointed. He misses Simon's steadiness, and his quietness—being with him was like being alone in all the good ways, a breath of fresh air in a chaotic and violent world that always demanded more and more attention. That's why Markus goes up to the bell tower when he wants to think; it's as close as he can get to the hours they spent in the captain's quarters of the old Jericho, Simon's favorite place on the entire ship.

North doesn't offer platitudes because she doesn't believe in them, but also because sometimes she just doesn't know what to say. Sometimes, it makes him miss Simon—Simon, who always seemed to be able to find the right words.

North might not have the perfect words for Markus, but what she does have is real and honest; she doesn't lie or sugarcoat anything, especially not with Markus. "I miss him too," she confesses. Of course she does—North knew Simon and Josh before Markus met any of them. They were her very first friends. Her voice trembles but doesn't break when she says, "We all do."

Knowing that doesn't make it any easier to bear; it actually makes the guilt worse, because that makes everyone else's grief his fault. What does help is North's hand in his, her presence here next to him. From the very beginning, this it how it was, with all four of them: it's not _I love you_ that matters the most, but _I'm with you_. _I'm with you_ means _I trust you_ ; it means _you're not alone_. Nothing, not even love, could mean as much as togetherness.

That's what makes being apart from Simon so hard.

Eventually, Markus steadies himself. He drags his sleeve over his eyes and tries to find some calm. "I should go," he whispers. "Find something to do, instead of—dwelling." Markus's balancing act between life at New Jericho and life with Carl leaves him so busy that finding a spare second can seem impossible, but it's also his last defense against the despair that threatens to swallow him whole when he thinks about what he did on the roof of Stratford Tower. If he's too busy for downtime, he's too busy to feel and remember.

Seeing Markus so upset has North near to tears, but she puts a brave face on it. "Another medbay shift already," she tuts, eyes bright and tone gently disapproving. She thinks Markus is above menial work. "Or you could go visit your dad."

"It's almost two in the morning," Markus reminds her, and they both laugh a little. God, but Markus loves her. He would have never made it this far without her by his side.

Markus dashes at his eyes with one hand, and, finally, pulls back the synthskin on the other. North responds in kind, and then he doesn't have to say it: he loves her so, so much. He's so grateful she made it out alive. He was terrified when she was shot escaping Jericho, couldn't fathom the idea of losing someone else he loved so much so soon. It felt as though his whole world stopped turning and crashed down in pieces around him—

"I know, I know," North assures him, breaking their connection—halfway between exasperated and touched. "You don't have to show me, I _know_."

Sometimes, Markus wants to show her anyway. They've talked a lot about Simon, but sometimes the words just don't feel adequate. He misses Simon almost more than he can bear, but he never, ever wants North to think she isn't enough. She's more than he'll ever deserve, and no matter how much he tells her, sometimes he just needs her to _feel_ it. He needs to know that she _knows_.

North lays one hand on the side of Markus's face. "I know," she says again, "I do," and then she leans in to kiss him.

Markus doesn't try to interface with her again, but he pulls her close, and when the kiss breaks, presses his lips to her forehead.

"For what it's worth," North murmurs, "he knew what he was getting into. We all did. He wouldn't have come with us unless he was willing to accept the risk."

Markus squeezes his eyes shut, hides his face in the crook of North's neck. "That didn't mean he wasn't afraid." He thinks of the unfinished portrait in Carl's studio, waiting for him to come back to it. Simon may have accepted it, but that doesn't mean Markus can.

North strokes her fingers over the short hair on the nape of Markus's neck. "We were all afraid," she reminds him. "That's what made us so brave."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always to Cathy ([strange_estrangement](https://archiveofourown.org/users/strange_estrangement/pseuds/strange_estrangement)/[@dellesayah](dellesayah.tumblr.com)) for her stellar editing. Any remaining bullshit is mine. 
> 
> This fic is on [tumblr](http://thegeminisage.tumblr.com/post/181373228178) and it would make me really happy if you'd like to reblog it so more people can see it! 
> 
> If you're interested, I also have a tag for [rough drafts](http://thegeminisage.tumblr.com/tagged/rough%20drafts), where you can see snippets of this story that aren't online yet. (Depending on when you check on this, there may also be art in there - just scroll down until you get to the goods!)
> 
> See you next time - thanks so much for reading!


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